These Guys Hope Video Will Save The Radio Star (and Filmmakers)

Independent filmmaker and promoter Sam Mason Bell founded a small indie collective called Trash Arts in the UK to drive an otherwise bi-polar creative community. The real goal was to champion creatives of all types by putting the community before profits in a city that would not champion them. Having found some success since it's inception in 2007, Trash Arts is taking it's raw brand of content across the pond in partnership with Stream Now. I caught up with Sam and Stream Now founder Ron Valderrama to discuss their plans.

How did Trash Arts and Stream Now come together?

Stream Now / Via streamnowtv.com

* RV: Sam actually reached out to me almost a year ago to discuss his web series The Making Of. At the time, Stream Now was focused almost exclusively on web series but had recently started looking for independent content in a longer form because we had just launched our Roku TV channel. The Making Of was a hilarious idea and was a web series in a traditional TV length of 22-25 minutes.

* SMB: With the Making Of, we really didn’t know how people would take it as it was independent and completely budgetless we were just happy to keep making it. I started to join various groups for web series, having never ventured there, I had saw Ron Valderrama post on there, I read the description of what he wanted although the Making Of was different I thought I’d take the risk. I was shocked and delighted seeing the professionalism from Stream Now being interested in a scruff mockumentary shot in Portsmouth. From there we’ve been able to share rethinking and are recent feature film The Animals.

What Is The Goal For Trash Arts & Stream Now?

* SMB: The overall goal of Trash Arts is to show that elitism and film making do not go hand in hand, everyone should have the opportunity to make films. Our plans in the USA is to hopefully a create a relationship with other film makers, something we have been doing with Stream Now TV, Versus Media and various horror directors. As a working class film maker based a country that’s slowly falling part (UK), international is the way forward and of course as any film maker knows America is the dream.

* RV: It’s funny to see Sam’s remarks on elitism because it was the industry telling me no, that led to starting Stream Now. I noticed a lot of talented creators that were having a hard time breaking into the industry. I often joke that they told me I could not sit at the table, so I built my own table. Stream Now’s goal is to lower the barrier of entry for talented people.

Sam why did you pick Stream Now to exclusively stream The Animals?

* SMB: Stream Now had been getting us the right traction and interest from Rethinking and The Making Of. It just made sense to go with them, we decided with this film as it was long in production we just wanted to get it out there and through the most professional forum, seeing that Stream Now dedicates enough time to each of it’s services, we thought it would be great to give them a full feature, it also just fit more with the other material.

* RV: I literally can’t believe all indie creators don’t want Stream Now to be the home of their work. Especially when you see so many putting content on YouTube. We are a creator first platform and actually work with the creators to find an audience. At the same time offering a much more refined user experience than something like YouTube. For instance, we just launched a very sleek new channel on Apple TV. I do think YouTube is great for instructional videos and promotions. Just not what I think of when I want to sit down for a movie.

youtube.com

The Animals - Exclusively On Stream Now

Given your relationship with film and music, it seems like a natural fit for your most current project, reviving the original MTV style video programming. What can you tell us about that?

* SMB: This was a fantastic idea from Ron, considering how hard it is to showcase music videos. Channels such as MTV don’t showcase music as much they used to. Giving it a retro feel of focusing on the music seems novel and clearly correct. We hope to get as much international artist, but also to mix live intimate footage from artists no one would ever see. One of the beautiful things about running events is you get to see something special from someone who just feels inspired to create, giving that a bigger forum through video will only help that. Also I hope we can do live streamed events from the UK of my own gigs in the future

* RV: I guess I have gotten a little nostalgic in my old age. I was thinking about how I used to discover music on MTV and how much I even loved the old VJs like Martha Quinn. Knowing how ingrained Sam is with the music industry, it seemed very natural to give him the nod from a creative standpoint. The project will be called Stream Now Music Television and by all accounts, should be a total throwback to the old MTV days. I could not be more excited about this project. We are going to keep our indie roots on this though. Most of the artists will be unsigned and from every genre.

Trash Arts / Via streamnowtv.com

The Making Of Season Two

You can follow Sam on Twitter @SamMasonBell

You can follow Ron on Twitter @StreamNowCEO