::PROJECT Wreck a Movie – As the internet continues to connect people, filmmakers are looking for new ways to improve the funding, production and distribution process. The folks behind the internet phenomenon Star Wreck have established a social community around the creation of a number of film projects. The site describes the community as something that – “…helps get films done faster and at a considerably lower cost through crowd-sourced work on production tasks and online resourcing of expertise and corporate funding. The communities developed in production will also create a viral social marketing force that will get films seen through the hundreds of existing online and standard channels.”

WHY: Projects like Wreck a Movie and A Swarm of Angels are at the forefront of a new movement in collaborative filmmaking. These projects are experimenting with processes that could dramatically change how filmmakers approach their work.

::TOOLS Website Grader If you’re looking for a way to improve the traffic to your site or blog then you should take the test. Websitegrader.com offers an extensive free test that will evaluate the discoverability of your site. This is a great resource that breaks down the SEO issues surrounding your own site or blog.

WHY: An excellent FREE comprehensive evaluation of your site or blog that grades readability of content, number of inbound links, google page rank, google indexed pages, traffic rank, blog rank and number times you’ve been bookmarked.

::FESTIVAL MyFestival For those looking for a festival experience without having leaving the comfort of your own home then indieflix and there new offering MyFestival might be the perfect fit. MyFestival showcases features and shorts vying for a theatrical slot at film festivals around the world. Stop by and support the films and choose the one that you think should close out the fest.

WHY: IndieFlix is a champion of true independent cinema and MyFestival like From Here to Awesome are experiments that look to expand and change the current festival model.

::TOOLS Tangler takes the concept of forums and gives them a media boost by allowing them to accept rich media like audio and video thanks to a simple wysiwyg editor. Tangler also has a nice embeddable version that allows you to bring a media rich forum into your own site or blog.

WHY: Forums are an important audience building tool when used effectively. Tangler improves the functionality thanks to rich media and RSS feed integration which makes user contribution and notification easier

::TOOLS WetPaint is a wiki solution that enables you to easily create wikis around a subject. Wiki’s are very strong audience building tools when used effectively. It takes effort to grow them but when you strike the right balance between user contribution and devotion they can explode – a perfect example is the rapid growth of wikipedia.

WHY: A Wiki is an interesting way to grow a community around a topic organically. WetPaint also offers a new embed versions for publishers so that they can easily bring a wiki into their own sites.