Much of the most important innovation on the web today occurs within what some call the Golden Triangle.

The three sides of this triangle are social, mobile and real time.  Though the poster children for this triangle are Facebook, the iPhone and Twitter, this innovation extends far beyond these three companies.

This triangle creates a major shift in peoples’ experience of the Internet.

Now many people are;

1.  Always connected to the Internet,

2.  Constantly connected to their social graph and,

3.  Perpetually acting as a bridge between the virtual and physical world.

People have the Internet in their hands as they move about the real world and they are breaking down the old distinction between our “virtual” and “physical” worlds.

This process will accelerate as more people buy smart phones, which they are doing at a rapid pace.

So why should filmmakers care?

Filmmakers, distributors and theater owners want to bring people into theaters to see their films.  The golden triangle continuously spins off new tools that enable them to do so at a low cost.

So here are a three suggestions;

1.  Encourage people to bring their cell phones to the theater. (And use them there!),

2. Improve wireless access within the theater. (So these phones are easier to use!) and

3. Before and after each screening use the theater screen to enable people to communicate with other people in the theater and their friends outside the theater. (About films in general or the film they are about to see or have just seen.)

In other words, use these digital tools to enhance the social aspect of the film going experience.

That’s right, create a better social experience–a key reason most people go to see films in a theater in the first place.

digital tools, filmmakers, independent film, innovation, internet, Mobile, smart phones, social media

Isn’t it curious in this age where more moving images get created and distributed digitally that there is this group of people who still call themselves “filmmakers”?  It seems a term that is so archaic, so analogue, so yesterday’s news. But is it any of these?

I think filmmakers look for three opportunities that truly define them as filmmakers.

They are:

1.  The ability to tell a visual story from beginning to end, without any interruption, as a complete, continuous experience.  This is what separates them from people who create stories for TV as most TV series are produced with commercial interruptions or different viewings (episodes) in mind.

2.  The chance to have an audience gather in a theater and watch this visual story together, as a shared experience in time and space.  In the course of a film’s distribution it may be seen in a lot of different settings, public or private, but the filmmaker is making the film with this key audience in mind.  This is the primary target of all his/her imaginings.

3.  The opportunity to see his/her film with an audience.  Filmmakers want to physically experience the film with an audience. The filmmaker wants to see if they laugh or cry when he/she intended, if the audience got the point–to see if their film really succeeded at reaching another human being.  As every filmmaker knows who has done this–a genuinely scary moment.

So each of these opportunities really goes to the heart of what is most essential about calling yourself a filmmaker.

Think of them as a set of principles about the relationship between the creator of a film and the audience for which it is intended.

And here is what is most surprising as we move from the analogue past to the digital future.

These opportunities are not disappearing into the analogue past.

In fact, they are just beginning to open up.

consumers, digital tools, experiences, filmmakers, internet, media