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Dr. Horrible, the latest web series — a sci-fi musical, too — for the "low six figures," Whedon told the Los Angeles Times

Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly) decided to do a web project during the writers' strike. It's just hit the net and already come and gone in free form, but now the 36-minute three-part series is exclusively on iTunes (open in iTunes) for a flat $3.99.

It's worth it.

Whedon's project is Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, an Internet mini-series event about a struggling super villain (Neil Patrick Harris) who falls for the girl next door (Felicia Day).

Some excerpts from his master plan, so get ready to feel empowered, and follow his lead just without the famous actors, big money, and industry connections:

It is time for us to change the face of Show Business as we know it. You know the old adage, "It's Show Business – not Show Friends"? Well now it's Show Friends. We did that. To Show Business. To show Show Business we mean business. (Also, there are now other businesses like it.)

I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A super-villain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the Internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first.

If you like the sound of that, read more on the official site.

This project as a whole asks us, can we change the way we do business as creatives? Will the Internet provide us filmmakers with actual income and communal support? It could mean you no longer hope some exec sees it on YouTube; you might not need him down the road. The middle man is long gone. Today the relationship is artist to viewer and distribution is bandwidth.

David Badgerow's film, Jungle Gym

I've been intentionally avoiding posting Jungle Gym to YouTube because I was waiting for the festival run to end, and even then was a bit hesitant to share it on the online-video nebula. However, recently I was at a friends apartment and wanted to show them something silly that I had recently saved to my channel favorites. So in order to find this, my sub-intelligent brain thought the best way would be to search for my user account name and maybe it would show up in the listing. Yet instead, when I did this, what came up but my very own film, Jungle Gym, apparently posted 6 months ago now by someone else!

Almost 100,000 hits, over 100 comments, 300 favorites, ridiculous! All of this happening without my knowledge. I suppose I am happy for the added exposure, but a bit blindsided that this could occur under the radar. I of course realized that in my contract with Aniboom, they reserve the right to re-distribute / re-encode my film in any medium they got their hands on, so theres not much I can do about it, but I suppose this is a cautionary example of what happens when you don't think about what the fine print actually means.

Apple iPhone

The Apple iPhone, which just came out with a new iteration last Thursday, is the latest mobile platform for filmmakers. And no matter what David Lynch says about it, the latest geek chic is not just for calling people, browsing online, or watching movies: it can help the workflow on set, in post, and that's just the beginning.

iPhone Apps

The iPhone, and the phone-less iPod Touch, are still new, expensive, and sometimes can mean standing in a line for hours this last weekend. But mobile is an emerging market (even Spike Lee is hot on mobile film) and Apple is making it easy to develop, share and sell small applications than other mobile or PDA devices.

In tandem with the new hardware, Apple released a new area of its online store for downloading free or low-cost applications, made by users themselves. Scott Simmons of The Editblog posted his hopes for post-production applications, from a timecode calculator to a post-specific footage/storage calculator. Jon Chappell of Digital Rebellion, which hosts several web-based applications for filmmakers (listed below), also asked for more filmmaker apps. As for now, due in part to Apple's process to grant licenses to individuals to their Developer Program, there is only one:

Utilities

• LlameSlate ($0.99 download via iTunes Store) by Scott Lawrence (7/2008)

iPhone Web Apps

Prior to the iPhone App Store, Apple has been providing user-generated web applications (explaination) a listing in their directory. They also explain how to build one yourself, to then submit and share. All of the web apps below are free.

Paul Harill at Self-Reliant Film posted an initial list. We've swapped a few and added a few, ready for production or post-production:

Calculate

• Aspect Ratio Calculator (mobile version) by Digital Rebellion LLC (12/2007)
• Depth of Field Calculator (mobile version) by Digital Rebellion LLC (1/2008)
• Depth of Field Calculator by Viewpoint Photography (1/2008)
• Footage Calculator (mobile version) by Digital Rebellion LLC (12/2007)
• Film Rate Calculator (mobile version) by Digital Rebellion LLC (12/2007)
• Lens Angle Calculator (mobile version) by Digital Rebellion LLC (4/2008)
• Pixel Aspect Ration Calculator (mobile version) by Digital Rebellion LLC
• Power Load Calculator (mobile version) by Digital Rebellion LLC (7/2008)

Weather

• Stormchaser Cloud Reference Chart by Crossgates AC (6/2008)
• Sunrise & Sunset by Piet Jonas (7/2008)
• Also: see all Weather web apps on Apple.com

What's Ahead

Penguin at the Ninja vs Penguin blog, who cites a recent Wired Magazine article on Google's upcoming move in the open-source software arena to free up the mobile market, calls out to filmmakers to be pioneers:

"We need to understand where technology is bringing us and learn from what business and other content creators are doing with it. Yes we'll make mistakes, but we make plenty already with our films."

Mike Rohde's sketch of Gary Vaynerchuk's talk

Recently at the SEED 3 conference in Chicago, Gary Vaynerchuk, host of Wine Library TV, a daily internet webcast on the subject of wine with a "unpretentious, gonzo approach", spoke about the importance of fostering community with online networks. Mike Rohde, a designer and writer in Wisconsin, sketched his notes and posted them online:

COMMUNITY
Get outside and spend time with people in your space and outside your space.

That's exactly what we did last Friday. (Minus the likes of Gary and Mike, at least for the time being.)

The latest FWD:labs salon gathering, taking up the outside patio lounge at the Wilshire on a luke-warm Santa Monica evening, was another success. The event brought together a mix of cinema-savvy creatives along with their afficionados and audiences. Several were repeat attendees of a previous salon, enthusiastic about coming again.

Unique to these gatherings, we fast-forward past the networking and shop talk and instead hit the slow-mo for embracing conversation and fostering community. Being a small invite-only group, most know someone who knows someone, but there's still a lot of outspoken energy and enthusiasm about reinvigorating creativity and building friendships.

Nobody has to collaborate, but they all could, many have, and some just might in the future. But for these cocktails and coffees, it's about celebrating community outside your bubble.

In two weeks, the next meet-up is on Saturday, July 12th. The coffee's on me.

Bridge by Hillman Curtis

Hillman Curtis, resourceful trailblazer and playful maestro of online film and online design, has a new short film you have to experience.

Bridge, embedded below, "follows two friends as they move toward a discovery." Blow Up, Roof and Embrace (2008 Webby nominee for online video) are just a few of his several other short films. Each beautifully photographed film explores a similar structure: you're in the middle of a moment, observing the relationship, expression, and voice of the actors.

Curtis also has "artist series" films, whose subjects include filmmaker Mark Romanek and designer David Carson. His commercial clients include SVA (School of Visual Arts) and Adobe. Curtis' environmental portrait works to provide a more intimate, authentic narrative.

When he's not leading the creative direction of his Brooklyn-based company with sites like Metropolitain Opera and Yahoo, or cinema-savvy gigs like FoxSearchlight Pictures and Paramount Vantage Films, he also writes about design. His four books are all about new media and are quite highly regarded.

Asked in a 2002 interview on Sitepoint.com of the key message in one of his books, "MTIV: Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer," Curtis touches upon the creativity of a collective mindset:

"I wanted to consider the inclusivity of inspiration… the way we as creatives share and borrow and build upon the ideas of those around us, and those who came before us."

In 2005, "Hillman Curtis on Creating Short Films for the Web" offered inspiration, instruction and personal touch to the early birds dabbling in online film. Since all have changed in the last three years, the evergreen quality is his approach, noted simply on the book jacket:

"Hillman explains how his flexible, often spontaneous filmmaking style is guided by certain principles–the value of leaving room for serendipity, the freedom found within self-imposed limitations, the importance of collaborating with others, and the possibilities for discovery and revision when reacting to unforeseen accidents."

(via Motionographer)