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[Scroll to the bottom for the video] Honorable Mentions (in no particular order): Jurassic World, Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, The Night Before, Tangerine, Amy, The End of the Tour, The Martian, Bridge of Spies, The Wolfpack, The Visit, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Trainwreck, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Time Out of Mind, Danny Collins, El Club, Inside Out, Phoenix, Crimson Peak, Beasts of No Nation, By The Sea, It Follows, Youth, The Walk, The Hateful Eight, The, Nightmare, Ex Machina, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Creep, The Overnight and While We’re Young. Best Actor: Tom Hardy, Legend Best Actress: Brie Larson, Room Best Supporting Actor: Benicio Del Toro, Sicario Best Supporting Actress: Charlize Theron, Mad Max: Fury Road Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins, Sicario Best Original Screenplay: Damián Szifrón, Wild Tales Best Adapted Screenplay: Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee, Chi-Raq Best Film Editing: Hank Corwin, The Big Short B...

  There have always been the core ingredients behind the act of storytelling but as we propel wildly into the new media age of digital storytelling, we're seeing that most of the dialogue among content creators moves away from the storytelling fundamentals and more towards brass tax questions like--why aren't we making money at this? An interesting thing has happened among the independents. For the first time--at least in my lifetime--we're seeing more of a gap between seasoned mentors and hungry apprentices in our workplace. The democratization of film has left up and coming indie filmmakers to become more cavalier and guerrilla; these days the indie industry resembles a volatile landscape packed with hungry and desperate artists.  On the other hand, seasoned industry pros seem to have become blindsided by the digital revolution, not knowing what to make of the fall of print journalism, the demise of regional film criticism and the introduction of non-traditional...

A common oversight in our creative field is the curation of GOOD or STIMULATING content. Social media platforms like Vimeo give us all megaphones that can sometimes create more white noise in our arena; this can hinder the validity of an emerging new wave of indie filmmaking because there is such a high flux of content coming and going. The bottom line is that most online content (video, film) is quite bad. And not bad in an intentionally volatile or spiteful way. It's just that everyone is putting everything online. So where do you go? How do you compete with the dancing cat videos when your content is a 7-minute silent film? The key is going to be in the "micro"-curation among the independents . It's going to involve some meticulous cross-promotion of engaging or interesting works by our peers. This is harder than it sounds. The reason is that much of our time is already dedicated to actually creating content and then promoting ourselves as branded entities o...