Class #10, Guest Speaker, Jon Fitzgerald, Right Angle Studios

Only 2 classes left! This is therefore your last chance to turn in any late homework. Please refer to the syllabus if you have any questions about the 5 assignments:

1. I think everyone has a checkmark next to contributing a news story
2. Media Diary
3. Mystery Shopper
4. Book Report
5. Pitch or Research Paper

Anyone who is presenting a pitch will be giving it in class Sept 3. You will be limited to 10 minutes max. Be sure to include the basic elements:

1. The market, who needs it, the market size
2. The business model. How does this make money? If its not-for-profit then how does it solve the problem or meet the goal of the org.
3. The competition, why is your idea better?
4. Optionally you can elaborate on the team and how you will execute your plan. How much money / resources will it take? Will you do it by strategic partnerships? Bootstrapping?
5. For our purposes we can skip the financial analysis
6. Try to tell the “story” of your idea with emotion and concrete examples.

Class #10 featured Mark Heninger’s lecture on DRM: What it is, how it works, some of the different standards (Microsoft and Apple), and some different types; passive and active. We discussed some of the reasons for DRM pro and con. One reason is to simply keep track of who’s watching/listening to a piece of content.

Guest Speaker Jon Fitzgerald of Right Angle Studios told the class his story from Film Major, the Mail Room at a major agency to a “Desk”, to indy filmmaker to founding the Slamdance film fest and going on to direct major fests around the world include AFI and Abu Dabai. Jon became head of programming for iFilm, one of the first attempts at an online “channel” (Both iFilm and Atom.com now owned by Viacom, the latter under MTV Networks) Jon’s current company Right Angle Studios, has a slate of projects in development and one in production: THE BACK NINE. We learned about how difficult it is to get distribution for one of the 5,000 independent features made annually (not including the several thousand out of Bollywood). And how many are “coming of age” themes. Jon had some great insight into a career in film and the future of the industry and we are grateful to him for sharing his experiences so generously. Sphere: Related Content