A little over a year ago, my friends and I were tossing around thoughts about how lately films and filmmaking seem to be going in an interesting direction. These thoughts started turning into ideas. Then we got together to work on refining these ideas we had, and see if we could make something of them.

Why were we doing this?

Some of us thought we'd make films. The more we thought about this though, the more we became frustrated. We had seen too many great films that never made it beyond the festival circuit, and if they did it was in a disappointingly small way.

Then we started thinking about digital filmmaking technologies, and how they're making it easier for people to tell stories anywhere and about anything. So combine these things--films stuck in the festival circuit and filmmaking being more accessible than ever before-and you have a whole bunch of films out there. More and more great films that aren't being seen.

So there is tons of great stuff out there and people want to see it. I don't want to miss that one film that will influence or change the way I look at my relationships, family, job, or life as a whole. But how do I connect with that film?

How do I help other people connect with that film?

Well, my friends Dave, Paul, Daryn, and I have spent a bunch of hours working on this problem. Now we're working on a place that we think will help solve it. We're calling it Spout.

Other people have decided to help us along the way, and you may hear from them in this space occasionally. We want this blog to be a conversation. We want to hear what you think about the problems you see in filmmaking because we're interested in trying to fix them.

Comment, post, enjoy.

We're all about the dialogue.

Rick