IndieWire

indieWIRE is a daily news and social networking site for the international independent film community. It covers indie, documentary and foreign language films, as well industry news, film festival reports, filmmaker interviews, and movie reviews. The website has sections for high-profile film festivals, the indieLOOP community, filmmaker and industry weblogs, as well as resources and tools for emerging and established filmmakers. The site was acquired by SnagFilms in July 2008.

Personnel

* Eugene Hernandez
* James Israel
* Brian Brooks

History

The site launched on July 15, 1996. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=The New York Times and Emerging Pictures in Association With the ... |url= |quote=IndieWIRE now in its eleventh year ... is the leading source of ... |publisher=MarketWatch |date= |accessdate=2007-09-25 ] Following in the footsteps of various web- and AOL-based editorial ventures, indieWIRE was launched as a free daily email publication in the summer of 1996 by a group of New York and Los Angeles based filmmakers and writers. Initially distributed to a few hundred subscribers, the readership grew rapidly, passing 6,000 in the fall of 1997.fact|date=January 2008

undance '97

In January 1997, indieWIRE made its first appearance at the Sundance Film Festival to begin their coverage of film festivals. It offered "indieWIRE: On The Scene" print dailies in addition to online coverage. Printed on site, in low tech black and white style, the publication was able to scoop traditional Hollywood trade dailies "Variety" and "The Hollywood Reporter" due to the delay these latter publications had for being printed in Los Angeles. Due to a zealous staff that was willing to print and distribute said dailies at all hours of the day and night, often handing them out to audiences waiting on line for films, indieWIRE was soon dubbed "The School Paper".fact|date=January 2008 While the style and look of the print dailies improved over the years, the nickname stuck.

Fee-based service

In January 1998, indieWIRE announced it would be charging for their services. While met with cautious optimism by "Wired" magazine, [Brown, Janelle (December 22, 1997), Wired Magazine http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1997/12/9312] the experiment failed and indieWIRE returned to a free service less than a year later.

Reception

indieWIRE is said to cover lesser known film events ignored from the mainstream perspective. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=indieWIRE |url= |quote=Currently, indieWIRE has little to no competition: trades like Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety may cover independent film, but from a Hollywood perspective, hidden by a huge amount of mainstream news. As filmmaker Doug Wolens points out, indieWIRE is one of the few places where filmmakers can consistently and reliably keep on top of often-ignored small film festivals, what films are opening, and what other filmmakers are thinking. |publisher=Wired |date= |accessdate=2007-09-25 ] "Forbes" gave it the 2002 "Best of the Web" award. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Best of the Web |url= |quote= |publisher=Forbes Magazine |date=March 25, 2002 |accessdate=2007-09-25 ] indieWIRE has been praised by Roger Ebert, [cite news
title = Unknown title
work = Yahoo Internet Life
date = 1999-06-18] Kevin Smith, James Schamus, and Tom Barnard.fact|date=January 2008

References

External links

* [http://www.indiewire.com Official website]