In The Darkness

“In The Darkness” continues to perform well on Hulu, which has caused us to extend our exclusivity window with Hulu a little while longer thus delaying the release of “In The Darkness” on iTunes and DVD. I know some of you have been patiently waiting for the arrival of“In The Darkness” on DVD and we apologize for having to ask you to wait just a little while longer while we honor our new, extended, run on Hulu. We’re currently trying to coordinate the release of “In The Darkness” on DVD with its release on iTunes.

Speaking of iTunes, “In The Darkness” will be offered at new price points for the online movie giant (details coming soon) and will be available in its full HD glory for the first time.

With regards to Netflix we’re still working on getting the film up and running with them, however due to changes in Netflix policies the process is a little different now than it once was. As soon as we receive a street date we will let you know. In the meantime we ask that you continue to add “In The Darkness” to your Netflix cue so that when it does begin to ship you’ll be the first to get a copy.

Mattoid Docs

Jeremy recently returned home to Pueblo, Colorado for his brother’s 30th birthday celebration. While away on vacation Jeremy met up with family friends, Mike and Matt Casarez, who own a restaurant in Blackhawk, Colorado. Mike and Matt let Jeremy in on a little secret… they planed to break the Guinness Book of World Records for the most flavors of ice cream in a single place. Jeremy immediately contacted Jenna and myself to discuss the possibility of turning this quirky human-interest story into a documentary feature film for Mattoid.

Both Jenna and I (and of course Jeremy) thought it was a great opportunity to tell a wonderful little story about real people in a small Colorado town looking to make their mark on the world’s stage. Plus, it’s a film about ice cream-how do you say no to that?

So, Mattoid Docs was born. Since deciding to launch a documentary film division some three weeks ago we can tell you that there will be a few unique and very special documentaries coming from Mattoid Entertainment in the very near future, though “Sweet Dreams” is to be the first that is both filmed and produced by Mattoid Entertainment.

If you would like more info on Mattoid Docs we encourage you to check out our CONTACT page for details. For more information on “Sweet Dreams” or to find out how you can get involved please visit our “Sweet Dreams” page HERE.

Who Killed Jane Finch?

“Who Killed Jane Finch?” continues to forge ahead. We’ve cast two of the four lead roles (announcement coming soon) and are beginning to scout locations as we approach our summer production schedule.

Honor Farm and Reel Job

“Reel Job” has been a pet project of mine ever since I worked as a projectionist at Mann Cinema’s Southwest Plaza 5 Theaters in Littleton, Colorado. While Southwest Plaza 5 Theater is no longer in existence the memories and general hilariousness lives on and will be brought to the screen in “Reel Job,” a raucous teen comedy about the “real” movie business. The film is still in the script phase but will begin preproduction in the fall.

“Honor Farm” is a horror film written by Jeremy McGovern and Josh Simon who also wrote “Who Killed Jane Finch?” for Mattoid Entertainment. “Honor Farm” is tentatively scheduled to follow “Who Killed Jane Finch?” in Mattoid’s production schedule, though no further details are available at this time.

Those are the updates for now, or at least that’s all I can share at this time. Be sure to stay tuned and follow us on FACEBOOK and TWITTER for there is a lot more news coming very, very soon.

Andrew Robinson

Co-Founder/Director

Mattoid Entertainment

Last night (April 29) I was fortunate enough to be a guest on The Everything Film Show with guests Eduardo Sánchez, the director of “The Blair Witch Project” and actor Lindsay Ginter of “Lost” and the upcoming film “Transformers 3.” As always it was fun to chat with everyone involved over at The Everything Film Show and the ’round table’ discussion between Mr. Sanchez, Ginter and myself was hugely entertaining and fun. I hope you all get a kick out of it. You can listen to the entire show below.

There appeared to be some technical issues last night so the audio quality is going to be a little rough but you should still be able to enjoy the show. Thanks.

Andrew

Yesterday we were informed of several policy changes at Netflix, the nation’s online rental giant.  Due to these changes the release of “In The Darkness” on DVD via Netflix has been delayed. As of now we have no word on the length of the delay or a final street date. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause those of you who have waited patiently for the film’s DVD release.

Due to the delay there may also be a slight delay on shipment of the Special Edition “In The Darkness” DVD, however this remains only a possibility. We will keep you informed with the latest news and updates as they become available. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and appreciate your understanding and support.

We would like to also ask that you continue to add “In The Darkness” to your Netflix cue as well as tell your friends and fellow Netflix users to do the same, so that when the situation has been resolved we’ll come out of the gate with a bigger BANG.

ADD “IN THE DARKNESS” TO YOUR NETFLIX CUE

Thank You,

In The Darkness Team & Mattoid Entertainment

We’ve all been there, logged on to some website or service where inevitably we’re asked to “rate” something, be it a film, product etc. Most of us chose our rating and simply move on and don’t think twice about it. However, the act of rating something, especially a film or product, becomes trickier if you have a vested interest in the success of said film or performance. For instance, what if someone you knew was in the film you’ve been asked to rate?  What if you were in the film? Obviously, you want the world to know how good the film is, but more importantly how good your friend is in it. Or maybe you simply want your own name to be associated with a high ranking or positively rated project. Is that wrong? No. It’s perfectly natural.

You’re going to vote favorably and you’re going to vote often.

The problem with this approach isn’t your enthusiasm it’s the fact that services, especially those found on the Internet, have gotten wise and have put algorithms in place to combat ballot stuffing. Take IMDb.com for example, IMDb is pretty much the source for entertainment news, information etc. One of the many features IMDB has on its site is the user generated rating system, which spans from one to 10 stars with one being the lowest and 10 being the highest. Since IMDb is often the first place people look when trying to find information on a film, especially an independent, a lot of people put a great deal of stock in the IMDb rating and try to pump it up, sometimes artificially. In theory this would mean that all you would need is 100 of your closest friends to go to IMDb vote 10/10 and all of a sudden your rating is perfect; or at the very least high enough to thwart the net nerd who trashes everything. No so fast.

You see most rating systems are not based on averages of the total number of votes. They use complex and often proprietary algorithms to generate a “true” average or weighted average that better reflects the “intent” of the voters or votes. These algorithms also take into consideration where the vote is coming from and how new the vote is and will often discount suspicious or repeat votes.

For example: Bob really liked the film “Killer Zombies from Antarctica” and Bob logs onto IMDb and gives it a 10 star rating. Bob then tells 100 of his zombie loving friends to join IMDb and do the same. Overnight “Killer Zombies form Antarctica” has 100, 10 star ratings. The next morning Bob checks his favorite film’s IMDb rating to find that it’s ranked 3.5 out of 10. Bob can’t believe it; he begins to vote 10 out of 10 over and over and over again in hopes of raising the rating. The next day he returns to find that the rating is lower still, even though no one has rated the film below five stars. What gives?

What gives is that Bob is experiencing the weighted average system IMDb uses. While Bob may be a long time IMDb user his friends most likely were not therefore the system views their votes differently, especially if they’ve signed on and voted for only ONE film and gave it a 10 out of 10. The IMDb system can see this and views it as ballot stuffing and will often count these votes for less or throw them away entirely, meaning Bob was the only one out of 100 who gave the film 10 stars. Then when Bob began voting over and over and over again for his favorite film the IMDb system saw this as well and either threw all the votes away (even the legitimate ones from Bob) or began to count them for less, which drives the total overall rating down.

How does IMDb know that Bob is ballot stuffing? Simple, every computer that has an Internet connection has a “fingerprint” of sorts and that fingerprint can be read by IMDb so that when multiple votes come in from the same source they only count the initial vote and not the 100 or so that came after it.

So what Bob has done is essentially “hurt” his favorite film by being the best fan in the world.

I tell you the story about Bob for two reasons. One, I know many of you like to support what it is that we do and in doing so try to rate our work 10 for 10 whenever and where ever possible. First and foremost, those of you who do this are AMAZING and we are forever grateful however we want you to know that simply voting once is enough and whether you vote once on IMDb or once on every site you can find we love you all the same. Second, there are some of you out there that like to combat the net nerds and in doing so will try to counter their negative votes with positive ones, this doesn’t work and I can tell you from personal experience-that you can’t beat the net nerds. It’s best to not engage them or feed them.

I’m writing this because I was on IMDb the other day and noticed that while In The Darkness had jumped into the top 10,000 films on IMDb (a 240% percent increase for the week) the overall “rating” was something like three and a half stars out of 10. When I clicked on the ratings explanation I saw that we had a pretty good spread of votes and when I took the average of what IMDb was showing I came to the same arithmetic mean that they did; six and a half stars out of ten. But we have three and a half stars out of ten because I think many of our fans have been trying to “pump us up” and in doing so have lowered the rating.

I’m not upset, not at all, because I don’t give a shit about what people say or think of me on the Internet. Okay that’s not true; I care what my real fans say but anonymous folks on IMDb or Hulu or where ever can bite me.

That being said, I know many of you do care and want people to know of the good things we do and the people we employ because you truly do support us. Again, we appreciate it so much, but know that we’re okay with what ever comes our way via the Internet because we have to be…we signed up for it.

We appreciate your votes and encourage you to participate on sites like IMDb and Hulu, but understand that once you vote or post your comment you have to be okay with moving on. If you want positive interaction, discussion and banter you’ll have to keep it tuned to our sites, Mattoid sites, for you know we’ll always keep it sexy. As for the criticisms, flames and/or personal attacks swirling around out there in the ether…let ‘em be.

Originally posted on Mattoid Entertainment’s website www.mattoidentertainment.com

At what point does a movie stop being a movie? In the Darkness, Hulu’s first fictional “movie,” which had its online premiere last week, may not qualify. Darkness is 60 minutes long, was shot in five days, stars no-name actors, and for its first four weeks will be distributed only online.

Whatever it is, In the Darkness shows us yet another possible future for entertainment: one where movies turn the Web into their personal theaters. As usual, we can blame this new business model on the financial crisis. Darkness’ producers—a gang of relative newbies—originally wanted to make a bigger, more costly film. But that required raising funds as the financial system teetered, which happened to be precisely when no one was eager to donate to pet projects. So the producers scrapped the big-film idea, narrowed their scope, and came up with In the Darkness, a movie that was cool enough to merit making, but small enough to merit a different distribution method.

The movie’s plot is not as revolutionary as its business model. Two kids get killed in the high, lonesome hills, and detectives investigate. (Things, of course, are not what they appear to be.) But that’s all right , because the thing didn’t cost much money. One producer, Jeremy McGovern, declined to offer the budgeting details, but it’s not too difficult to tell the video was inexpensive. Not because it looks cheap—the shots and sets actually do look reasonably cinematic—but because there aren’t any locations. Nearly the whole video takes place in a scorched nature reserve somewhere in the mountains, an aid to the video’s aesthetics and economics.

And if you’re distributing a movie online, you’ve got to keep costs down. For now, Darkness’ only revenue stream is through Hulu’s advertising. McGovern wouldn’t share how much revenue they need to take in to be profitable, nor how much of the revenue goes to Hulu and how much to the filmmakers. (On the TV side, it’s estimated Hulu gets 30 percent to 50 percent.) Hulu did, though, specify the number of ads that had to be in the video based on a formula of a certain number of ads per hour of content. (Darkness has six ad breaks.) The Darkness crew wasn’t allowed to increase the ad load to try to make more money. Hulu, as the distributor of a film without corporate backing, was largely in control. (The producers were able to negotiate a certain amount of promotional love from Hulu. In the contract was a stipulation that Hulu promote the film on its movie channel page.)

Just because the movie’s model is new doesn’t mean it will work. On top of the Hulu cut, theDarkness producers have to also split their ad revenue with IndieFlix, a distribution companythat helped them get Darkness on Hulu in the first place. A few weeks from now the movie becomes available on DVD and iTunes, where it’s possible the film will make more money than on Hulu. Does that mean the producers should continue to encourage people to watch for free, or do they point them toward the more permanent—and profitable—options? It’s a question symptomatic of a film—and a media—industry that is uncertain about the way forward. Does it care more about audience or profitability?

In that sense In the Darkness is a typical movie. And yet Darkness can’t in good conscience be called a “movie”—it’s too short. But that doesn’t make it a TV show—it’s too standalone. It’s far too long to be a digital short. And “Web video” does a disservice to a work that carries a certain amount of narrative gravitas. We can’t quite call it a “made-for-TV movie,” either—it wasn’t made for TV. It’s partially a “made for online” movie, but it’ll find an afterlife on DVD. Because it’s a derivative of things we’ve already categorized, the movie defies categorization.

Thus I propose that we call In the Darkness a “Long Tail movie.” Its creators are tossing it into the ether, hoping that it catches some buzz. If it does, ad revenue and maybe some DVD purchases will lead to a modest profit. If it doesn’t, it still has a chance to break even because it was made on the cheap. The idea of the Long Tail benefiting films isn’t new.Netflix (NFLX) is more or less based on that idea. But what makes In the Darkness different is that it was made exclusively for the long tail. It’s not benefiting from it after the fact. It may be short, it may be low-budget, and it may be digital, but it’s still a movie—a Long Tail movie.

Originally published on Tuesday, April 6, 2010 on The Big Money (www.thebigmoney.com)

In The Darkness Team

In The Darkness Team

The film centers on the disappearance of two young men in a remote, fire ravaged mountain range and the team of detectives called in to investigate the incident. As efforts to find the missing young men intensify, Detective John Kilmer begins to suspect that they are in fact looking for something far more sinister.

The film is the debut release from Mattoid Entertainment, a production company specifically tailored to create first-run feature content for release via online platforms. Mattoid Entertainment, the brainchild of In The Darkness writer/director Andrew Robinson and producers Jenna Edwards and Jeremy McGovern, teamed with IndieFlix Inc. for this online release.

Most of the horror films featured on Hulu’s expansive horror channel are, for lack of a better word, crappy. Although a few gems appear every once in awhile, most of the films available are either cheap Troma schlock or horrible 80’s flicks. Oh, and Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which RULES. On occasion a newer flick, such as Tamara, will slip through the cracks and become available, but new films (read: within the past few years) are scarce.

Enter Mattoid Entertainment. Created by Andrew Robinson, Jenna Edwards and Jeremy McGovern, Mattoid Entertainment deals exclusively in original features to be distributed online over a variety of online avenues, the first of which is In the Darkness. Written and directed by Robinson and produced by Edwards and McGovern, the film recently premiered exclusively on Hulu, and can be watched here.

From the film’s official website: search and rescue team is called out to find two missing boys who have seemingly vanished without a trace in a remote, fire ravaged, mountain range. As the effort to find the missing teens intensifies Detective John Kilmer begins to suspect that they aren’t simply looking for two missing boys but something far more sinister.

The online release was carried out with the help of Indie Flix, and can be pre-ordered here. Not only do you get the movie, but you get a metric crapton of special features, including commentary, deleted and alternate scenes, and even a copy of the soundtrack.

You can catch a glimpse at the trailer behind the jump. Special thanks to Shock Till You Drop for giving us the heads up.

By Liz Stinson

In a sign of the digital times, Hulu.com yesterday launched the first feature-length narrative film to premiere exclusively on its site.

“In The Darkness” is released by Mattoid Ent., which focuses on creating first-run content for online platforms.

Pic follows the disappearance of two young men in a fire-ravaged mountain range.

Mattoid co-founder and “Darkness” scribe and helmer Andrew Robinson said cost considerations as well as the chance for greater exposure led to his decision to preem via Hulu after taking a more traditional distribution approach for his 2009 pic “April Showers.”

READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE