By Ariel Rachel Vered

In 2005, Justin Rigby came to New York to make movies. He finished film school at the University of Notre Dame and, faced with the age-old choice between NYC or LA, he chose New York. Five short films, funded entirely from his own pocket, and two feature-length film screenplays later, he still needed an outlet to exhibit his work. Then, one day, he discovered the IFC MediaLab.

IFC MediaLab was launched in October 2005 as a website (medialab.ifc.com) where filmmakers could upload their film and have it rated. Evan Fleischer, IFC vice-president of alternative programming and business development, saw the need to fulfill IFC’s mission in a more efficient manner and so created MediaLab.

YouTube may have cornered the market on video sharing for the time being, but it’s an arena for amateurs, where the quality of the videos is mixed. For the serious independent filmmaker, there’s a scarcity of opportunities to exhibit films for an audience.

“MediaLab is a site specifically created for the next generation of independent filmmakers,” explains Fleischer. “It’s a platform for independent filmmakers to be seen.”

Rigby completed his most recent short film, “Automaton,” in November 2006 and submitted it to the website’s Independent Spirit Awards Short Films Contest.

“I thought, who knows who could see it?” says Rigby. “The biggest thing is getting people to see your work.”

“Automaton” is an experimental film that integrates visual and musical elements through editing technique. The images include water crashing over rocks, a close-up of a man (Rigby) blinking his eyes and the illuminated snowflakes in Columbus Circle. The shot lengths are synchronized to the techno beat that Rigby composed himself. In January, he uploaded the film onto MediaLab. By mid-March, his film was listed first on the experimental films page.

MediaLab is a place where creativity and artistry can truly be appreciated. In 2005, The Sad Little Stars, a Brooklyn-based electronic pop band, had created a sweet song and a clever animated music video done in a pop storybook style. It had taken over a year to complete, but who was going to play a music video called “Don’t Fuck With Love”?

Rachel McIntosh of The Sad Little Stars contacted Fleischer about posting the video on the new site. She remembers him being very enthusiastic. The video holds the distinction of the most-watched video on the website: over 60,000 views and over 1,000 votes.

On the website, visitors watch the videos, rate them and make comments like the ones for “Automoton,” which include: “*****,” “This is A Great Piece of Work,” “Absolutely beautiful” and “badass!” The site encourages a
supportive atmosphere for interesting and diverse works in categories such as action/adventure, animation, documentary, horror and music.

The top-ranked films air on IFC on a monthly basis. “Don’t Fuck with Love” aired for three months in a row because of its popularity on the website. McIntosh says she gets emails from film festivals all over the world asking to submit the video for exhibition, and she credits the IFC MediaLab for the exposure.

MediaLab functions as a sort of virtual studio, and the IFC uses the site to scout fresh talent. On a program called Media UpLoaded, it screens “the best of the rest” of the films. They’re not the top-ranked films, but, according to Fleischer, they’re ones that IFC thinks people should see.

Still, IFC MediaLab is no match for the brand-name recognition of YouTube. It offers a community for like-minded independent filmmakers, but it also requires the filmmaker to engage in a great degree of self-promotion—be it through word-of-mouth, blogs or personal websites. Rigby recalls being uncomfortable with asking people to vote for his film in the Spirit Awards Contest, held in February.

“I don’t really like doing the ‘look how great I am’ thing,” says Rigby.

Unfortunately for the independent filmmaker, if you don’t sell yourself, you’re doomed to serve lattes at Starbucks for the rest of your life. Unlike, say, a musician—who can make a name by going on tour and playing clubs—an independent filmmaker has much fewer options of places for people to see his work.

MediaLab clearly wants to fashion itself as the gathering place for independent filmmaking. Its ads aim to create the sense of a supportive community. A banner on the MediaLab website reads, “Got films? We wanna see them. Upload your films now and be a part of the IFC MediaLab.” But does it work?

Independent filmmaker Mike Newman isn’t so sure that MediaLab is altogether useful in getting exposure. Newman currently has five films uploaded on MediaLab. “I thought that the MediaLab would be a great place to showcase my work and hoped something good could come from it,” says Newman. “One of my shorts was selected to be a part of their ‘MediaLab Shorts Uploaded’ television program. I thought that would be a great opportunity since they selected my short to be on their channel, but it turns out to be no big deal and nothing has come from it.”

At the end of the day, MediaLab can’t make success happen; it can only offer independent filmmakers the opportunity to exhibit their films in the Internet realm. For some filmmakers, like Rigby, having films on MediaLab provides a degree of satisfaction amidst the frustration of finding funding and bringing feature-length concepts into being. There is a wealth of talent on the webpages of IFC MediaLab; a click of the mouse offers a wide range of short films. In an industry where making the film is only one hurdle, MediaLab offers a solution to another hurdle: a place for short films to be exhibited. What happens after that is anybody’s game.