What is SEO (search engine optimization)?

SEO is the term used to describe the marketing technique of preparing a website to enhance its chances of being ranked in the top results of a search engine once a relevant search is undertaken.

Prevalent Studios offers the ability for your company to get found locally or world-wide by analyzing your target market, creating a plan with a list of keywords that are attainable, and puts the plan in action for you.

Submit a Quote today and tell us your needs to have one of our specialists contact you immediately.

It is extremely important nowadays for a business to be seen on the internet, and search engines such as Yahoo and Google, are used by millions everyday to find relevant information.

If you are in a mainstream market, search listings can range in the thousands, which means possibly millions of pages of websites relevant to a search exist. SEO methods are mastered when a website can be listed in the first few pages, ideally the first page, which gives the highest chance of being viewed online.

There are many gimmicks, tricks, and false promises out there that guarantee a website to be listed in the first page of many search terms. Do not be fooled by these practices. Although a few do achieve this in a short time, eventually it will lead to becoming BLACK LISTED, or removed from a search engine index altogether. As Google itself admits, there is no sure way or exact time to be listed high in desired terms. Only a skilled SEO team who knows what to do, understand strategy, and is aware of the market of each term can determine an approximate process. Let us help you now!

SEO, which only an experienced SEO programmer can do, is the only form or achieving a high ranking. DO NOT fall victim to tricks and gimmicks!!

Prevalent Studios performs extensive research, strategy plans, competitor analysis, and other forms of strategic planning to guarantee performance and results as each plan is tailored to each client. Every business is different, and keyword terms differ greatly. Let us help.

Call us today for a free evaluation of your website, and allow Prevalent Studios to get your site to the top of search engine spectrum today!

Search Optimization

1. SearchEngineWatch takes a look at how search engine optimization has changed in light of Google’s never-ending updates and crackdowns. Brad Miller mocks the continued proclamations that “SEO is dead” with a clear rebuttal explaining that SEO has merely adapted into something he calls Search Marketing Integration. Definitely worth a read for the detailed overview of the changing world of SEO.
2. Acumium lists a number of individual posts covering specific SEO best practices, including title tags, meta descriptions, urls and keyword research. Good info here.
3. Daniel Sharkov talks SEO for WordPress bloggers with 5 WordPress SEO Tips to Help You Boost Rankings and Traffic. Check it out at Reviewz ‘n’ Tips.

Social Optimization

4. What’s the most useful social network? According to small biz owners, it’s LinkedIn. Shocked? Check out Cynthia Boris’ analysis of recent research published in the Wall Street Journal over atMarketing Pilgrim.
5. Okay, this one is just too good to pass up: You know those Facebook-crazies, the ones who are always having public status-update battles with a seemingly endless group of frenemies? Well, it turns out your instincts could be right. New research shows that a person’s Facebook profile can provide clues on their psychological state, according to Mashable. (Yeah, we know. DUH, right? But funny nonetheless.)
6. So you’re probably tired of hearing about Facebook’s Graph Search already. But we really can’t stress the importance of optimizing your brand page for this change. Ogilvie Innovations offers up a step-by-step approach anyone can use to get their brand page Graph Search-ready.
7. Pinterest has announced an up-and-coming makeover, according to Webhead Interactive. What’s to come? New and improved navigation and bigger images. And we’re only slightly disturbed by the large jellyfish photo that accompanies this post.

Local Optimization

8. FourSquare has released an app just for businesses to keep customers posted on deals and happenings, even on the go. Mike Isaac sums it up at All Things D.
9. Local optimization ranks high on the list of priorities for many marketers in 2013. The Distributed Marketing Blog evaluates the challenges of shifting to a more local-focused marketing campaign and some possible solutions.
10. As local marketing tops the wish lists of many small businesses this year, some are probably wondering how they’ll ever work it into the budget. PME360 offers up some money-saving local search marketing tips for small businesses on a budget.

Email Marketing

11. Have you ever considered buying an email marketing list just to boost your initial subscriber base? Two words: BAD. IDEA. What Counts discusses some of the more major ramifications of shelling out some cash for a couple thousand completely irrelevant, uninterested readers who will click the “Spam” button quicker than you can say “Bad idea.”
12. Does email marketing actually work? It can, if you work it right, according to Ciceron’s Julie Verhulst. Julie talks the standard set-it-and-forget-it mindset and why that approach just doesn’t work anymore.
13. Relying on one massive subscriber list encompassing every single person who’s ever handed over their email address? If so, how are you possibly targeting your messages? Answer: You’re not. Take a look at In The Box’s 30 ways to segment and target your email marketing list.

Mobile Optimization

14. TopRank reports from SES Chicago with five tips to optimize your mobile marketing campaigns.
15. MobiTrax Mobile Tracker rounds up a list of 25 mobile marketing stats that will blow your mind. If you need some convincing that mobile marketing should be a part of your arsenal, this should do the trick.
16. Mobile is a powerful tool for inbound marketing. SEOmoz provides a detailed look at the top three inbound marketing strategies for mobile.

Content Marketing

17. Everyone knows that content and SEO are pretty much joined at the hip these days. But who do you write for: Search engines or users? If you don’t already know the answer, we’re still not going to tell you. But we will point you in the direction of one of the most in-depth, resourceful articles we’ve ever come across on the topic. Webdesign Tuts+ takes a look at optimizing your content for the search engines – and the users. (Know the answer yet?)
18. SnapApp lists 13 leading content and interactive marketing gurus. Need a case study in what it looks like to really “get” content marketing? Take a look at the work of any of these individuals or companies. It’s like a resource-within-a-resource. Okay, you got us. It’s a roundup.
19. Econsultancy’s A to Z guide for content marketing success is an impressive resource for anyone – experienced or inexperienced – who wants to refine or expand their content marketing campaign. Print it out, sleep with it under your pillow – hey, we’re not judging.

Conversion Optimization

20. Market America reveals three keys to conversion optimization and five conversion opportunities offering maximum impact.
21. Prevalent names the five top landing page optimization mistakes – as well as a few  tips for avoiding or remedying these major no-nos.
22. Ever wondered how much effort the presidential candidates put into optimizing their campaigns? Optimizely takes an in-depth look at Romney’s campaign in “This team has data, not opinions: A/B testing at the Romney Campaign.” The mere reference to data outweighing opinions in relation to any politician was, quite frankly, enough to draw us in. Way to create an impossible-to-resist headline, Optimizely!

Reputation Management

23. Check out Blurbpoint’s online reputation management guide for 2013, complete with an infographic to convince you just how important reputation management is in the online world.
24. MD Web Pro provides an easy-to-follow guide to introductory reputation management, ideal for the do-it-yourselfers or those who just haven’t given in to the need for constant reputation management just yet. Google yourself a couple times, and you might change your mind.
25. Can we learn anything about online reputation management from zombies? Maybe so. See whatSileo has to say.

BLOG CREDIT: www. upcity.com

The impact of video in the marketing mix is clear. You need to add video if you want more web traffic and a broader customer base. Optimizing your videos can help do that. We’ll help you get started with a few simple steps (by the way, you can subscribe to the free Prevalent Studios Daily Tips newsletter for more video SEO tips).

Video Content Marketing

To start, video is simply another form of content. It can educate, entertain, persuade, and build brands. It can help position your company as an authority in the field by providing simple tutorials or product spotlights. Video can show action in a way that words never could.

Example: Do you sell kites? Try explaining a new kite launch technique with words. Reading about it can’t compare to seeing the steps (and joy of the experience) in a 2-min ‘how-to’ video.

What is Video SEO?

In 2007, Google implemented ‘Universal’ search which pulled results from a variety of digital assets — text, images, video, news — rather than simply providing traditional text articles in SERP. This opened up new media opportunties for small business owners and marketers to share their information. Search crawlers can ‘read’ textual data only so search programmers needed to determine a way so that the robots could locate different media, then provide relevant results. Enter video SEO.

A search for ‘how to launch a kite’ now delivers video results on the first page because these vendors have created and optimized their video. Like written articles, video SEO allows you to target keywords and then create titles, add meta data, video description, and file names to your video. Telling the search engines what your video is about through SEO is the first step in getting more web visitors. Here’s a quick overview of Video SEO basics.

Video Production

You don’t need fancy equipment or finely crafted scripts to do a tutorial or promote a product. Zappos shoe videos are a fantastic example. With very little video production, they highlight product features and benefits. You can simply grab an affordable video camera, create a rough script or storyboard, film, edit, then upload to YouTube. Or, you start and have someone else edit — there are many affordable web production firms, Candido is a favorite.

Where to Post Videos

This decision isn’t as simple as it might seem. Decide what you want your video to do — get traffic to your site, build brand awareness, or garner more followers in your content stream.

1. Host on your own site. This has the greatest impact on your own SEO and website ranking. All video traffic comes to your site for viewing. The problem is, you’re missing a lot of potential viewers that are on YouTube each day looking for videos of interest. You MUST upload a Google video sitemapso it can index your video. Be aware of server and streaming needs if hosting your own video.
2. Host your video on a 3rd party provider such as YouTube. There’s no doubt that YouTube rules the video world and Google’s ownership certainly weighs in the favor of good search placement.

Using Video SEO to Increasing Sales

Outside of additional traffic and greater conversion opportunity that optimized video brings, providing customers with content in the form they prefer is simply good business. Most people find that watching video is much easier than reading directions in text. So people are less likely to leave your site if engaged with a media (video) that’s appealing and tells them a story. Use this to your advantage.

Once you’re set with goal, video production, optimization, and hosting; consider adding a text-based transcript of your video to your site. This ensures crawlers and people can read what your video is telling them.

So succeed at inbound marketing and get free traffic. Your great product video should have the following elements:

1. Be optimized. Use video SEO so that people and search engines can find you.
2. Simple. Tell them what they want (need) to know in the shortest amount of time possible—2 minutes or so,
3. NOT over-produced. Natural looking video is the best of all. Use real people and customers whenever possible.
4. Focused on the customer benefit. No one wants to hear about you or how fabulous your company is.
5. End with a strong call to action. Tell them what you want them to do next. Call…download..order..subscribe. Close the deal!

To access our database of questions or to ask your own question, become an Prevalent member today! In addition, sign-up for our free Prevalent Studios Daily Tips newsletter to learn other  ways to improve your online presence.

Question 1: I know it’s a good SEO strategy to create videos related to my site’s content, but professionally made & edited videos seem expensive and time-intensive to create. Is there a cheap and easy way to make a tutorial video for my business? that would show a movie of my changing computer screen as I click around and narrate?

Our Response: There’s no denying the large impact of video marketing. Videos are an easy and low-cost way to add another form of content to your website. They can attract a larger range of customers, whether you want to post a quick instructional video, testimonial, advertisement, or any other type. For example,  you can do something as simple as creating an instructional video for your clients by briefly videotaping your screen while you click around and narrate. Even using a flip cam or cell phone camera will work well for a tutorial video rather than some high-tech camera or spending thousands of dollars and hiring a company to create it for you. Some great DIY apps to look into are Camtasia, Adobe, Candido, iMovie, Jing Project, Magisto, Animoto, or even GoToMeeting. Video marketing is becoming more popular nowadays, so there’s a lot of wonderful tools out there for you to check out. Overall, it’s important to spend time creating, organizing, and planning a clear-cut strategy for your video, as you would with any type of high quality content you want to post on your website. See also How to Use Video SEO to Increase Sales.

Question 2: Should I be doing search engine optimization and pay-per-click (Google AdWords?)

Our Response: We recommend that clients participate in both SEO and PPC if they are able to do so. Both types of optimization strategies are relevant and useful for SMBs, helping to improve your search engine results and increase traffic. In fact, the combination of SEO and PCC in your budget can really work together. On one hand, participating in PPC will help to lock in your top keywords pretty quickly, but the cost can add up quickly. If your expectations are to see an immediate lift in search rankings with either type of online marketing, you may be disappointed. With the help of Prevalent, SEO creates a slower, more steady (and much lower-cost!) option. Organic traffic from inbound marketing will provide lasting benefits if performed correctly and maintained on a regular basis.

Question 3: I just found out that I have two version of my website, and both of them have some backlinks. Which one should I use?

Our Response: Prevalent members can read the answer to this inquiry, as well as many others, in the Prevalent Ask the Expert Help Center. Members are encouraged to ask their own online marketing questions for their business, and our inbound marketing experts are on call to respond to all those questions.

Tap into our community of experts today! If you’re curious about online marketing or SEO, consider signing up. If you’re already an Prevalent Studios member, you can access the Ask the Expert area here and the general Help Center here.

Color correction is just one step of the entire filmmaking process…but oh, what a difference it can make. You can take average footage and really make it pop, sing and enhance the viewing experience of your project. If you have excellent footage, then the sky is the limit. You can also make images look garish, ugly and destroy all the hard work the crew did to capture those images on the day of the shoot. The challenges and choices are many and it comes with great responsibility if you are the one applying the Color Correction and Color Grade. In the indie film world, jobs are more often merged and unified and Color Correction is more and more falling into the hands of the Editor. The smaller the budget and tighter the deadline…the more often this becomes true. Shane asked me to take this opportunity and pass on some tips and tricks I have learned over the years of Coloring features, shorts, ads, music videos and documentaries. I choose to use Adobe CS5.5 for my Color post work and bounce between After Effects,Photoshop and Premiere as I love the seamless integration it provides. I am ecstatic to be integrating Speedgrade into my workflow as it will be part of the upcoming CS6 release. That said…the tips I would like to share with you are applicable to all Color Correction software.

To get on the same page, let’s quickly go over some terminology that clarifies what is what in this realm.

COLOR CORRECTION is the process where every clip is manually tweaked to get a good exposure and balance of light. Each clip is adjusted to match color temperature to a predefined choice for each scene. This tedious and mechanical process is essential and in its own way, an art form. The use of SCOPES (Waveform, Vectroscope, Parade) is critical to this step and luckily most NLE’s and Grading software have them built-in. Without them you are literally flying blind and solely trusting your eyes, which have to adjust to room light ambience, fatigue, funky monitors and other factors constantly. Trust the SCOPES and let them guide you into accurate and creative decision making.

COLOR GRADING is the creative process where decisions are made to further enhance or establish a new visual tone to the project through software including: introducing new color themes, re-lighting within a frame, films stock emulations, color gradients and a slew of other choices. Being that this is purely creative, there is no wrong or right…only what the DP, director and colorist feel is appropriate for the story. It can be subtle and invisible or over-the-top and uber-stylized. Therein lies the challenge…The challenge of choices. The tools available are so numerous, powerful and often free (Davinci Resolve Lite!) that you have no excuse not to explore these options further before you embark on the Grading journey.

LIFT-GAMMA-GAIN / SHADOWS-MIDTONES-HILIGHTS / BLACKS-MIDS-WHITES
These are the 3 interchangeable assignments used to describe what portion of the image you will be working with. Every program uses one of the 3 naming conventions above, but in essence they are all the same. Even when working with LEVELS or CURVES, you rely on numericals but still have 3 sliders (at least) to make your adjustments. With these 3 controls, you can mold images almost at will.

There are so many different elements to Color Correction that trying to fit it all into one blog would be futile. I would like to focus on several specific tips that will allow the indie filmmaker to be as effective as possible in creating imagery that will help serve the story. I would like to thank Michael Evanet, the director of “HWY”, for allowing me to share his footage for this blog. I just finished editing and Color Correcting his film.

TIP #1 – SHOOT WITH A FLAT OR LOG PROFILE
Shane has learned over his extensive research and testing of every profile available that choosing a flat profile will allow you to capture as much information as possible into the camera. When I shoot on the 5Dmkii, I like to use Technicolor Cinestyle or Canon Neutral with minimal sharpness and contrast. I’m also about to test the Similaar Flaat profiles that just became available in 4 different flavors. The camera companies often have stock profiles that look contrasty and rich in camera but when analyzed on a monitor, you will have crushed blacks and blown-out highlights. That is information that is gone forever and you cannot get it back. We, as filmmakers with the tools in our hands, cannot accept stock anything! Just as auto anything on the camera is a recipe for disaster, stock profiles are for rank amateurs. Tweak away!

Click the image to view high resolution.

TIP #2 – TRUST THE WAVEFORM, VECTROSCOPE and PARADE SCOPES
In PREMIERE, go to the WINDOW tab and choose WORKSPACE and COLOR CORRECTION. Push the little RGB BUTTON on the bottom right of any window. This will reveal the SCOPES and more.  Waveform=Luminance. Vectroscope=Chrominance. Parade=Red,Green,Blue values. I can’t stress enough how critical and essential it is to use these tools. Once you embrace the SCOPES, you will be confident to plow through footage and have instant visual feedback to confirm you are making the right decisions. I won’t broach the calibrated monitor issue that is always lurking ($$$) and will just say that understanding and trusting the SCOPES will get you 95% of the way home. Grab a Matrox Mini and use that to calibrate any LCD TV if you’re in a pinch. This includes finishing projects for broadcast or passing QC for distribution.  I’ve on-lined 4 indie features on Final Cut Prousing only SCOPES that all passed QC the first time around.  I was sweating bullets…but survived! Adobe makes it even easier for me now.

Click the image to view high resolution.

TIP #3 – ORDER OF OPERATIONS
To maintain image quality and to preserve as much info as possible, it’s important to do things in the proper order.  Just as you wouldn’t ice a cake before you bake it, when you apply an effect is critical.  I have always achieved great results using Stu Maschwitz’s advice. Doing Color Correction on your footage in this order will help you maintain extremely high quality in the interaction of all the effects you use.  Not all steps are needed for every shot but in case you have to use them all, here they are:

1. Remove artifacts and de-noise.
2. Balance your shots by adjusting BLACKS/MIDS/WHITES, SATURATION and WHITE BALANCE.
3. Relight within a shot using power windows or masks.
4. Add gradients, diffusion and other lens filters.
5. Add vignettes
6. Grade your images
7. Simulate a film stock of your choice
8. Resize and sharpen

Click the image to view high resolution.

TIP #4 – THE FAST COLOR CORRECTER EFFECT in PREMIERE is 32 BIT, EASY AND EFFECTIVE
This video effect is a great starting point to tackle any shot. This one effect will allow you in REAL-TIME to address levels, saturation, tinting of the image, white balance and more. The shot below shows how I added contrast by raising the input black slider and lowering the white input slider. I used the color wheel and dragged towards orange to counteract the blue in the original image. You can also use the White Balance dropper to achieve an accurate starting point…but I preferred in this case to Tint the whole image towards orange and approximate a 1950’s film look.  I boosted saturation by a healthy 40% to make the image pop. Finally, a 2.35 matte was added to approximate the old Cinemascope aspect ratio.

Click the image to view high resolution.

TIP #5  -  ADJUST YOUR LIFT/SHADOWS/BLACKS FIRST
By adjusting your BLACKS first, you get a baseline started to balance your image. I like working from the bottom up and getting my BLACKS just kissing 0 IRE on the WAVEFORM. I then push the WHITES up to expand my image and get some contrast into it. Finally, I tweak the MIDS as needed. You will notice that moving the BLACKS or WHITES up or down will affect the entire WAVEFORM so there is a give and take dance as you work back and forth. MIDS do not affect the BLACKS or WHITES too much and that is why you should work with them last. Lastly, if you raise MIDS, you will lose overall saturation to the image, so compensate by bumping up the SATURATION to keep the colors popping.

Click the image to view high resolution.

TIP #6 - MIDS ARE WHERE FACES LIVE
MIDS are where the skin tones live and you can really make a face pop by raising the MIDS after you have a good balanced image. Sometimes it feels easy to raise the EXPOSURE in Premiere or After Effects to brighten a face or scene…but that raises all the levels evenly and will ultimately not be as effective as separately adjusting the 3 zones. A good IRE for a properly exposed face is 60-70 IRE on the WAVEFORM.  If you raise the MIDS too much, you will introduce the beast of digital noise, so use judicially!

Click the image to view high resolution.

TIP #7 - Look for the FLESH LINE on the VECTROSCOPE to see how far off your skin tone is. On the 3-Way Color Corrector effect, or on a plug-in like Colorista, you can change the specific zone of color where the flesh tones live. By adjusting the color of the MIDS wheel you can introduce the proper hues into a face that need tweaking. Move the wheel in the direction of the color you need more of in your face. Watch the section of skin tone move until it lines up with FLESH LINE. An interesting note is that the FLESH LINE is accurate for all races and skin tones. We all share the same skin pigment that registers as numeric FLESH color. Proper WHITE BALANCING earlier will make this a minor but still important adjustment.  If you are going for a natural look, no one likes a pink, red or green face. SATURATION should be dialed in at this point to give a natural look to the flesh tone. Here’s a subtle example of adjusting for skin…and an overt example for comparison.  Neither is right or wrong….it’s all up to what feels right for that moment.

Click the image to view high resolution.

Click the image to view high resolution.

I hope that I was able to pass on some helpful knowledge and that you learned at least one thing you didn’t know before you read this. There are infinite ways to approach Color Correction and the best thing is…no one way is the best. You don’t need every plug-in known to man, a 4k projector and a $20,000 control surface to color correct. You only need time, the simplest effects and a sense of wonder and excitement. Feel free to push the footage around and see how it responds. What may look like a mistake on one shot could be the secret sauce you need for a completely different shot. Experiment and enjoy!

VASHI NEDOMANSKY

To inquire about my editing and post services or if you have any questions, please contact me at:

vashi@me.com
310.526.1400
www.vashivisuals.com

Blog Credit: http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/2012/01/7-tips-for-hd-color-correction-and-dslr-color-correction/

I guess if the world is ending, spending it with James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Jonah Hill, and Craig Robinson wouldn’t be so bad. That’s who’s starring in the apocalyptic comedy This Is the End, with the aforementioned funny friends playing versions of themselves and dealing with the sudden end of the world — and making pretty meta jokes about it, in McBride’s case. In the red-band trailer, we get a taste of what the end of days looks like with these guys, which includes pee cocktails, wacky disasters, and cameos from other stars like Emma Watson, Jason Segel, Paul Rudd, and Michael Cera.

Given that This Is the End started off as a short film that starred Rogen and Baruchel (Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse), I’m curious to see how the idea was fleshed out into a full-length comedy. But either way, I’m already sold on this movie for its lineup of actors who’ve made me laugh together in so many movies before. Let’s just hope the world doesn’t actually end this week before we get to see This Is the End, which comes out June 14. Watch the trailer after the jump.

A new Superman reboot is scheduled to be released in 2013. And to give movie goers a peek on the film, WarnerBrosPictures uploaded a trailer of it on its youtube channel as reported by washingtonpost.com. Meanwhile, stating that though the clip gained opposing reactions, entertainment and sports news website Green Bean Buddy said that it still heightened the viewers’ anticipation.

Based on the report, the said new Superman movie trailer was uploaded last Tuesday. And as it related, British actor Henry Cavill will play Clark Kent. Actors as Russell Crowe, Amy Adams and Michael Shannon will also be in it. Additionally, it shared that Christopher Nolan produced the film and Zack Snyder directed it.

As related by a separate report from cbsnews.com though, there were actually two teasers previously released for the film over the summer. However, unlike them, the newly released trailer was full-length. And as the said report related, it surely showed more about the movie than the two teasers did.

The new Man of Steel movie, as the washingtonpost report stated, is set for release on June 14 2013.

Here’s an Excerpt of the post New Superman Movie Full-Length Trailer Released Online by Green Bean Buddy.

Following the famous steps of Christopher Reeves and Brandon Routh, Henry Cavill also put on the Superman suit. And his new look as the popular hero, he debuted in the new Man of Steel trailer.

Actually, this past summer, two teasers for the new Superman film were already released, giving movie goers just a tiny peek. However, with a full-length trailer released on Tuesday, fans were treated with a bit more details about the storyline and characters of the said soon-on-screen film.

Checking out the reactions on the full-length trailer of the new Man of Steel film, entertainment and sports news website GreenBeanBuddy.com said that viewers generally got two opposing responses. It said that while others loved the mood the clip presented, some found it dark. Nonetheless, the website commented that despite the contrasting reactions, the trailer surely helped create a hype for the film.

Read More Entertainment and Sports Updates at GreenBeanBuddy.com.

Find More Movie Trailers Press Releases

New York, NY (PRWEB) December 12, 2012

Seed&Spark, the first end-to-end solution for independent films to fund, produce, and distribute their films using the power of the crowd, closed its Seed Round of financing. Investors include Manitou Ventures, SourceN and a set of angel investors.

“Manitou Ventures believes in grassroots innovation. We support companies that make a difference. Seed&Spark is breaking new grounds for the film industry. By opening up the film production process early on, filmmakers can build and expand their audience during the entire production process, from pitch to distribution,” says Chris Wadsworth, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Manitou Ventures, the lead investor in the seed round of financing.

Unveiled on December 1, 2012, Seed&Spark features projects by what the company calls its “Founding Filmmakers,” a group of narrative, doc, and series makers whose work reflects the broad spectrum of what’s possible in independent filmmaking.

Seed&Spark Cinema offers a slate of ‘ready-to-view’ films available for streaming, including award-winners from Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, and more. Shorts stream for $0.99 and features for $2.99. Filmmakers keep 80% of the revenue.

Seed&Spark Studio features a selection of fundraising campaigns for independent movie productions. Filmmakers can raise money using the Seed&Spark WishList; recruit for cast and crew; blog to keep the community updated; and gather all the supporters and followers together on one Community page.

The central element of each fundraising campaign page is the Seed&Spark WishList, a crowdfunding tool that works like a wedding registry. Filmmakers can list exactly what they need to make, market and distribute the film. In addition to cash donations, supporters can donate or loan equipment, services, locations, accommodations and catering, among others. This allows the audience to contribute to the movie in their own way, become part of the production process and get rewards.

By funding, following, recommending and sharing productions, Seed&Spark site users earn bonus points, called “Sparks”. The Sparks can be redeemed to watch Seed&Spark Cinema movies.

“Seed&Spark offers film enthusiasts the opportunity to support new film projects and be rewarded with watching more independent movies. We are building a new ecosystem that restores independence to independent film, fueled by both filmmakers and film lovers,” said Emily Best, Founder and CEO, Seed&Spark.

Seed&Spark Studio and Cinema projects span all genres, from narrative features, comedies, documentaries and animations to experimental shorts.