Cinema Minima’s elves have been busy working on an upgrade to its Web server. It will look much the same as before but it should be more reliable. It will also be “hardened” against attacks by spammers and hackers.
SliceHost hosts Cinema Minima’s Web server.
No Microsoft products play any part in Cinema Minima’s Web site, its services, or its applications. Our servers — and our office equipment — run flavors of UNIX or LINUX operating systems.
To write their stories Correspondents are offered an online word-processing interface which looks like Microsoft Word; it is made using AJAX technologies — not ActiveX or any other Microsoft tools.
To keep Cinema Minima and its syndicated news feeds free of Microsoft artifacts, Correspondents are asked not to paste text copied from Microsoft Word or any other Microsoft application.
Both Cinema Minima readers and Correspondents will have safe and satisfying experiences using Web browsers such as Firefox (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux), Safari (Windows, Mac OS X), iCab (Mac OS X), Opera (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux), or Camino (Mac OS X). Microsoft’s own Web browsers are not recommended.
Here is something a Correspondent — you — can do which would help persons, e.g., festival press officers, to be receptive to you as a representative of the publication.
Please take care to not describe Cinema Minima as an e-magazine. That is inaccurate, and it is imcomplete. It is not an e-magazine. It is not a blog. It is not a Web site, although it uses the Web as one of its several channels of distribution.
Please describe it in this way, using these words —
Cinema Minima is a news service. Its readership is international. Its distribution is worldwide. Its stories are syndicated. It has been online since 1999.
Every day, thousands of movie makers worldwide read Cinema Minima’s syndicated news feed, get its bulletins on their mobile phones, visit its Web site, or listen to its podcast.
Cinema Minima Correspondents and stringers report from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America.
Cinema Minima Correspondents have been accredited as Press by the AFI Fest (Hollywood), the American Film Market (Los Angeles), the Berlinale, Lola Kenya Screen, the Independent Film & Television Alliance (Los Angeles), the New York Film Festival, the Singapore International Film Festival, Sundance, and The Times/bfi London International Film Festival, among others.
You may wish to add that Cinema Minima also offers an audio podcast, distributed in Apple’s iTunes Store. It sponsors filmmaker events in Paris and — recently — in Mumbai. It is preparing a print edition for those parts of the world with limited Internet access, e.g., Africa.
Organizations like Cinema Minima are the future of the news business, and — with the help of its Correspondents — it aims to be a small but significant player in the motion-picture trade publication segment of news media.
A Correspondent needs a byline photo (a headshot, smiling in JPEG format). This is important for building relationships with readers. They may come, once, for Cinema Minima; they’ll come back for their favorite Correspondent.
By the same token, a small bio (50 ~ 150 words) is essential.
Cinema Minima is a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) online newsroom, this means …
Correspondents offer original stories to Cinema Minima’s readers and subscribers. Therefore …
Cinema Minima’s syndicates its stories via its feed (RSS). This is its primary channel for distribution. Individuals subscribe to its feed; but more important than that — other publications use stories from Cinema Minima’s feed. For this reason …
Nowadays — and for the future — a motion picture is likely to be made on video, not on film. Therefore, as a rule, CM refers to motion pictures as “movies” unless they have actually been made using film.
Cinema Minima’s (CM) audience is international. English is used as lingua franca: Correspondents should write assuming that CM readers’ first language is not English.
By the same token, the adjective “international” is preferred to “foreign”.
Local measurements, such as currency references, should be rendered understandable for international readers, e. g., “US$1,000″ not, “$1,000.” It is OK to use rupee, crore, and lakh; but be sure to render equivalents in decimal units of Euros or dollars, too, e. g., “Production cost was RS 1 crore | €155,500,” etc.
Cinema Minima will furnish letters of assignment for reporters, to apply for Press credentials for film festivals or other such events.
The agreement : For an event for which CM has provided a letter of assignment, coverage will be exclusive to Cinema Minima.
Cinema Minima welcomes Suddhasatya Ghosh as its Correspondent in Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
