itzon

The mission of itzon is to create an interactive online film festival and digital broadcast platform to showcase incredible, inspiring and revolutionary film content to a global audience. itzon will be a place to experience the best independent films, documentaries and animation. An innovative and fully interactive service for filmmaker and audience member alike; our vision is to play our part in helping more independent productions get distribution deals or be acquired for mainstream TV broadcast and to help filmmakers create co-pro opportunities, win commissions, achieve film sales, get recognition and build a global fan base for their work. Our objectives are to promote the fact that a film’s fan base can be as great, if not greater, than a huge advertising campaign, to mobilise the viral voice and help audiences and filmmakers ask traditional and longer established broadcast outlets – ‘why can’t you commission more productions like this?’ and to develop into a premium resource for traditional broadcasters and distributors to source new films and talent.

What we can do for you the filmmaker:
We’re here to showcase the best in films, documentaries and animations. Anything from 90 second microshorts right through to 2 hour epic features; one off’s, series’ or multipart’s, scientific documentaries, historical biographies, extreme sports, right through to drama, comedy and sci-fi. We celebrate the independent spirit of engaging and original storytelling through diverse voices and films that push the boundaries.

itzon is the world’s first online broadcast film festival, visually it runs just like a standard TV channel but in your internet browser, and features a linear stream of programmes running 24/7, all of it uploaded by independent filmmakers.

There is no fee to upload a film to itzon and when a film has aired on the linear stream it will automatically be entered into the itzon VoD service for 30 days. We have also created a system where filmmakers have the potential to earn money back from the VoD service based on the number of views their film receives. The best thing about this is that if you have more than one film running with us the viewing numbers for all your films are tallied together to maximise your earning potential.

On top of this are the festival winners prizes we offer each month, which include cash, software and hardware.

Plus we facilitate filmmakers to sell copies of their films, DVDs, digital downloads, soundtracks and merchandise through the itzon site and we take no commission, 100% comes back to the filmmaker and their team.

The technology and software we’ve created to stream itzon and ensure the security of films and the enjoyment of our audience is revolutionary. For this reason the visual interface for itzon will not be available until October 2010. So to give you an insight into how the channel will look and work, you can watch this quick video:

We actively promote your films with the aid of our online weekly magazine, which contains featured articles, daily listings, and video trailers by delivering it by email into our audience’s inbox first thing on a Saturday morning. Your audience are able to vote on all films whilst they watch the live stream plus send you the filmmaker a direct message giving you instant feedback.

The film festival awards are given monthly, and 2 month in arrears. For example all films transmitted in our live stream during November will be part of the November festival. However they will continue to receive votes for a further 30 days in the VoD system (during December). We will therefore only be able to tally audience votes at the beginning of January. The 5 films with the most audience votes in all three categories will be assessed by a judging panel to find a winner in each. As well as cash and additional prizes the winners will be interviewed for a feature in our magazine as well as being relisted for a further 30 days publicity.

More importantly our mission is to provide regular feedback to Distributors, Broadcasters, Commissioning Editors and Creative Directors. If your film receives rave reviews from the itzon audience then we make sure that that feedback goes straight into the inboxes of the people who will be interested in your talents and could help you develop your career in the future.

We are really passionate about providing a service by filmmakers for filmmakers. TV is changing, film is changing, distribution and audiences are changing and we want you to be part of it with us.

We look forward to hearing from you
The itzon team.
www.itzon.tv