Hasta La Motion!

As i mentioned, we have been working on the sale of vfxtalk to sputnik7, i wanted to discuss that here openly so the community could give their opinions.

Sputnik7 has a rich history, having been founded 10 years ago by Chris Blackwell (legendary producer of bob marley and u2 and prominent backer of the indie film and music markets) and Les Garland (founder of MTV and the Box).

The original founders invested over $10 million in it as a indie music/video/film streaming site back when this was very hard and expensive to do. It was aquired by Palm Pictures 4+ years ago and due to internal politics was put on the sidelines where it slept for a while.

Last year a group of investors approached me to put together a deal to buy it out and re-launch it as a inde film site focused on online film production, promotion and distribution.

I put the deal togeather, with Blackwell as a shareholder, and 6 months ago it was finalized. Sputnik7.com was relaunched last month as a platform, with the final designs and new look and feel going up this at the end of this month along with the roll out of their app platform for digital tv’s.

I worked as the webmaster for the company, and got them to come in and help us as a the site sponsor for vfxtalk a few months ago. They have contributed to our hosting, content management (news, interviews, videos etc) and are the current sponsor for the challenges.

I proposed the acquisition of vfxtalk to them a few weeks ago, and it has been preliminarily approved at their last board meeting.

Under the terms of the deal, sputnik7 would acquire vfxtalk but would maintain it as a wholly owned subsidary, managed and run by the vfxtalk community, so it would not be merged into the sputnik7 site or shut down/absorbed.

They would be able to put a lot of resources and support into vfxtalk, such as more challenges with better prizes, better editorials, artist interviews etc.

They are also very interested in helping to combine indie filmakers with vfx artists and independent production houses, in order to raise the quality of independent film as it moves to the web. This cold mean better jobs and great opportunities for freelance artists around the world.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this deal, things you would not like to happen, and things you would like to happen before agreeing to it on my side so i can make your requirements it a part of the deal itself.

regards,

Jah