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At a recent film industry event I attended, I found myself picking up my jaw from the ground a lot. I ran into a number of individuals--all indie producers and content creators--who were hellbent on landing that "theatrical run" for their micro or modest projects. The relentless DIY-digital filmmaker inside me kept erupting with "Are you fucking nuts?" expletives. You see, I have a deep concern for my peers not seeing the big picture. Like any other independent artist, I would love to have all of my work tour the nation on big multiplex screens but we know that the current exhibition infrastructure is not built to program all of our work (whether their current programmed content is any good is an entirely different discussion), so why bother with waiting around and hoping to be "discovered"? We know the major film festival route is becoming a slimmer opportunity every year; since when do films that star Tinseltown marquee names earn the label of being...

"The issue of ‘convergence’ is having a significant impact on micro-budget feature film-makers. It is opening up vast new possibilities to profile and distribute work alongside established industry methods ."  That's the potent opening line in a resourceful post hosted by Film London 's microbudget-film-centered platform Microwave . Cross-promotion and intuitive marketing schemes have become popular staples of indie filmmaking and why not? It's hard enough to get your film financed, so being able to attract outside capital from branded franchises is a welcomed feat. The hard part is being able to embed these products carefully within your work; I mean, you're still making your piece of art, not a ho-hum corporate commercial. Still, free services like Product Place Me! give filmmakers the opportunity to get clever with their sponsors' products. But cross-promotion in filmmaking is just one avenue of a larger "Cultural Convergence" ...