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.

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…

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.

Jeff Koenig, founder of OMFGeek, has a plan.

In the past, he’s been behind the development of a number of web series.

Now he’s using the crowd funding site, Mobcaster, to raise funds for a pilot for an independent scifi/comedy series called Drifter.

What’s different this time?

First, there were crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo designed to make the process of donating to creative projects more broadly and easily accessible.

Now, there’s SLATED …

A new online film investment marketplace designed to connect accredited investors with independent filmmakers who have high quality  films in need of financing.

Hulu has announced the upcoming launch of an original, scripted series, “Battleground,” for streaming online, joining other online players like Google’s YouTube, Yahoo, and Netflix in the direct-to-web, original programming game.

“Battlefield,” a timely series about a fictional political campaign, debuts on Hulu on February 14th. Although first developed, then dropped, by Fox, “Battlefield” will bypass airing on traditional TV altogether.  Hulu is picking up two original unscripted series for online streaming, as well,”A Day in the Life” and “Up to Speed.”

According to Andy Forssell, Sr. VP of Content at Hulu …

As the 2012 Sundance Film Festival approaches, filmmakers whose films have been accepted by the Festival this year, or any other year for that matter, have an additional reason to be happy, thanks to an initiative set up by the Sundance Institute last summer to help Sundance alumni get their films streamed online.

Scott Macaulay wrote in Filmmaker Magazine (July 27, 2011) …

Jon Reiss, an award-winning producer and director, recently launched a new book for independent filmmakers and those interested in digital independent film distribution.

Co-written with Sheri Candler and The Film Collaborative, it’s called “SELLING YOUR FILM WITHOUT SELLING YOUR SOUL” and was launched on multiple platforms simultaneously.

It follows Reiss’s earlier book, “THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX:  THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO FILM DISTRIBUTION AND MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA.”

According to Reiss …

Hybrid Distribution is catching on.

First conceptualized by Peter Broderick, who runs Paradigm Consulting in LA, this new form of indie distribution is a way for independent film producers to find their audiences by retaining sales rights and working with multiple third party distributors rather than following the traditional route of giving away all rights to a single distributor …

Graham Taylor’s keynote address at LAFF 2011 was a rallying call to independent filmmakers to become more entrepreneurial.

Given the proliferation of networked digital technologies, a consumer revolution is afoot which is transforming the distribution landscape by enabling viewers to take control of their viewing habits and filmmakers to take control of the distribution of their films.

In Taylor’s own words …