In an age of tweets and texts, cellphone novels and films created with iPhones, it seems that short is in vogue, at least when it comes to technology-enabled communications and artistic expression.

Perhaps it’s the fast pace of our lives these days. Everyone’s so busy. No one seems to have any time.

Or, maybe it’s the easy and affordable access people now have to the technology. With just the expense of a smartphone, anyone can make a film, particularly a short film, right?

For these, and other reasons, the creators of Vine would certainly like to think that short is the latest new thing.

With just 2.5 million viewers during it’s third and final season on the CW Network, VERONICA MARS, a TV series about a young female sleuth and her detective father, was cancelled in 2007.

The audience might have been too small to justify the show’s renewal to Warner Brothers, the rights’ holder, but it’s  passion was anything but. More like a cult following, fans of the series soon began to clamor for VERONICA MARS, the movie.

The studio passed on the idea, but series creator, Rob Thomas, and star, Kristen Bell, with Warner Brother’s permission, decided to launch a VERONICA MARS Kickstarter campaign  to try to raise the necessary production funds themselves. And, the fans responded in spades.

With 210 million unique site visitors reportedly viewing over 1.9 billion videos and 707 million mobile videos in February 2013 alone, Machinima is YouTube’s number one entertainment channel.

Never heard of it?

Not sure what “machinima” means?

The term comes from the fusion of “machine” (+ “animation,” according to some) + “cinema” and, with roots in the video gaming community, has traditionally referred to,

“… original films made within a real time 3D virtual environment, combining film-making, animation and games development.” (Tracy Harwood, “The Machinima Movement,” Fallopian, October, 2009)

 On the other hand, Machinima, Inc., the company, which draws on gamer, fan-produced machinima for content, is,

“… a video entertainment network (online) for video gamers (that provides) gaming-focused editorial and community programming  (featuring) official publisher content, gameplay videos, scripted series, and original content, including weekly and daily shows to 18 to 34 year old male demographic. The company’s properties are available across various distribution platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, iOS, and Android.  Machinima, Inc. was founded in 2000 and is based in Los Angeles, California.”  (Bloomberg Businessweek)

So, you may wonder, why has Ridley Scott (ALIEN, BLADE RUNNER) signed up to work with a gamer-oriented network like Machinima?

Things are changing.

The image of YouTube as the go-to place to watch home brew video clips of cute kittens and smiling babies is fading fast, especially as the company continues to ramp up its efforts to compete with broadcasters for audiences by funding the development of original, high quality content for its web channels.

Nothing reflects this more than YouTube Spaces, which are rapidly cropping up across the globe to provide studio space, expertise, workshops, events, screenings, creative collaboration, and state-of-the-art production and post-production resources for creators, which is YouTube’s name for people who are involved in its Partners Program.

The good news for creators is that the use of the various resources at YouTube Spaces is not only free, but creators also get to retain ownership of the content they produce, which they can then license to YouTube for display on its channels. Some revenue sharing is involved as well. The bad news is that, although not impossible, it does take some web production chops to become an official YouTube creator.

With the debut of House of Cards, a new political drama directed by David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey, Netflix has made life a whole lot easier for all those marathon TV viewers out there.

No need to wait for a couple of episodes to air, or an entire series for that matter, before getting your friends together for a binge viewing party. 

According to Adam Leipzig, film and theatre producer, writer, Cultural Weekly’s Publisher and former executive at Disney and National Geographic, a perfect storm has developed from the collision of new technologies, new business models, and new creative talent and it’s creating a new Golden Age in cinema.

Some thoughts from Rick Pagano

(Writer, Director, Casting Director)

There are volumes on what it means to be creative. Let me add two more metaphors to the canon.

To be an actor means to play in your own sandbox, on cue, under pressure, in front of a bunch of people who need to be reminded of their own, often misplaced sandboxes.

Buried by production, time, and personal pressures, the people sitting in many audition rooms usually look like they’ve just swallowed a half-pound of toxic waste.  The air in the room can be stale with tension.

From the blog of John Bailey,

Cinematographer and

Film Director …

No one is likely to conflate the dangerous, kinetic world of Nigerian Nollywood action movies with the benign fantasies of Lewis Carroll, although each portrays a surreal universe. The Nollywood portraits of South African photographer Pieter Hugo depict the denizens of a dark rabbit hole of third world cinema, one heralded as the world’s third most prolific production center—behind only Hollywood and Bollywood.

Some Thoughts from Rick Pagano, Writer, Director, Casting Director…

I would like to talk about discipline, specifically the discipline of the Olympic athlete and how it compares to the acting profession.

Think of Los Angeles as the Olympics of acting. This is the city where actors come, from all around the world, to compete for the “gold.” Throw a rock in this town, and you’ll hit an actor, writer, director. There are those who hate that notion; personally I find it a tremendous asset/resource/comfort for those of us who have come here to create.

But the proximity of  collaborators comes at a price.  Because they are also your competition.

As reported in the Guardian (11/29/12), China’s film market is exploding.

Ben Child writes …