Got this from the CinemaTech blog:
http://cinematech.blogspot.com/2006/02/waterborne-movie-debut-success-on.html

I'm very interested and excited about this new distribution model. It could (and probably will) really democratize indie filmmaking and distribution. If you haven't heard about this or checked it out do so.

Google Video is offering downloadable full-screen size movies that can be bought or rented for the day. Prices vary, but it looks like $3.99 is a purchase price and $0.99 is a rental price (it's up to the filmmaker if I understand correctly). Google hosts the video files on their servers and takes a cut for this service.

My guess is Apple will be doing this soon too in the iTunes music fashion, but for movies. Although, they'll probably be offering "Hollywood" films more than indies (at least in the beginning). Google offers both right now. The content is fairly limited, and the quality is not the greatest - but it's pretty darn good.

I watched the first 20 minutes of "Waterborne" and was pretty impressed with the streaming image quality (and the movie was pretty good too). But once the resolution improves (and bandwidth) and more and more folks have the capability to download movies and then play them on their televisions - instead of only their computers - then this distribution model will rock. It's not far away now. Give it another year or so and I think this will be the norm, especially for folks already enjoying the video iPod watching first run TV shows, etc.

I'm definitely watching this trend closely and will quite possibly release my first two feature films ("Thugs" and "Hit") in this manner. We'll see what happens...

-Blake

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