Apple’s Insomnia Film Festival

Apple is sponsoring something called the Insomnia Film Festival on November 15th. You have 24 hours to complete a film that uses three items out of a list of required elements. Then, some famous folk (Masi Oka! Jason Bateman!) judge your movie, and you can win nifty prizes (such as a MacBook Pro and Final Cut Studio 2 for your whole team).

Are contests like these exciting for you? One of the folks at Boston Media Makers said that a recent video contest that involved winning a Vespa had under a dozen entries. What would motivate you to do a short film contest? A cool prize? Great judges? Creative demands on story or casting? Joss Whedon sending a personal email to the top contestants?

That last one would probably do it for me. . . but I’m sure there are other things that would float your boat. . .

Radiohead’s Pick-Your-Price a Success?

In Rainbows Album Cover Image from WikipediaThe Chicago Tribune has a good set of numbers from the Radiohead “In Rainbows” release. As you may recall, Radiohead offered the album as a download in advance of the physical release and allowed fans to choose what price to pay for the album (if at all).

A few highlights:

  • $8 million from 100,000 box sets sold
  • 1.75 million CDs sold (on top of box set sales)
  • 1.2 million fans on the concert tour
  • 3 million copies sold overall (including digital)
  • Web sales alone exceeded the total sales from their previous album
  • Upon physical release, “In Rainbows” debuted atop both the U.S. and U.K. pop charts

What do you make of this? Do you think the experiment was a success? Are theses numbers indicative of a good business model despite the number of users who downloaded the album for free, or is this the effect of a quality album coupled with Radiohead’s previous popularity?

Is this evidence compelling enough to make you consider a similar model for your own work?