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New York, NY [June 9, 2008] –Tribeca Film Institute, a non-profit organization serving independent filmmakers and media artists, today announced the launch of Reframe, an innovative project which will help individual filmmakers, broadcasters, distributors, public media organizations, archives, libraries and other media owners digitize, market and sell their classic and hard-to-find films and video content using the Internet. The Reframe website, www.reframecollection.org, goes live today and will be a one-stop location and an important resource for filmmakers and distributors wanting to bring films to educators, film scholars and the general public; it will be a destination for scholars, artists, teachers and film enthusiasts to easily search for and locate content. Reframe is working with CreateSpace and is created with major support from the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Many filmmakers, distributors and archives can’t afford the high conversion cost to the digital format, and have been reluctant to invest in digitizing “niche” content. Reframe converts all content to highquality digital files; Works in video formats will be digitized for free, and film formats will be digitized “at-cost.” In a unique arrangement, Reframe returns a digital copy to the rights-holder for free, and allows them to make their content available to others in a nonexclusive arrangement. Reframe then makes these works available for sale to the public, sold at prices based on the suggested retail price set by the rightsholder. All content is made available for sale on DVD on Demand at Amazon.com as well as digital download to own or rent through Amazon’s Unbox service.

“Too many films remain unavailable to the public, even the best researchers and scholars, because they are literally ‘stuck on the shelf’ in analog formats, or in hard to find catalogs. Reframe will essentially digitize our visual heritage and give these important works new life,” said Brian Newman, CEO of Tribeca Film Institute. “Reframe opens up an additional revenue stream for rights holders who may not otherwise have had the resources to reach the educational marketplace.”

“CreateSpace’s partnership with Tribeca Film Institute enables us to make classic film and video content easily accessible to educators and film aficionados everywhere,” said Dana LoPiccolo-Giles, managing director of CreateSpace. “Our DVD on Demand technology is a cost-effective way to quickly and efficiently provide rare content to customers who might otherwise never have had access to these valued materials.”

Reframe’s website is designed to become a community hub that will collect content from numerous sources of independent and alternative media, and allow users to find content in new ways. As more works become digitized, and video proliferates on the internet, Reframe will be a trusted source to help guide quality content. Reframe will help end users find the best films through a combination of expert and user generated curation and specialized search functions as well as by combining the best features of social networking, recommendations from friends and colleagues, good cataloguing, and other methods to help find the best films online. Reframe curators and bloggers already include: John Hanhardt (Consulting Senior Curator for Film and Media Arts - Smithsonian American Art Museum) and Kathy Brew (Curator, Former Managing/Co-Director - Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival) among others.

Filmmaker Sally Potter who is participating in the project, putting her entire oeuvre on Reframe said, “This is a fantastic initiative. For years I have been looking for ways of making my films, especially the very early ones, some of which have never been distributed, available to anyone, anywhere who wants to see them. Reframe is finally making that possible.”

In its first year, Reframe plans to have more than 10,000 titles available, including classic public television films and videos, documentaries, independent features, shorts, foreign films and vanguard cinema.

 

About Tribeca Film Institute

 

The Tribeca Film Institute is dedicated to creative innovation in film and media arts. The Institute creates original programs that draw on the unifying power of film to promote creativity, understanding, tolerance and global awareness. Our commitment is to educate, entertain and inspire filmmakers and audiences alike, while strengthening the artistic and economic fabric of New York City and its Lower Manhattan community.

For more information visit www.tribecafilminstitute.org.

Additional support for Reframe comes from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.

About The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

 

The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society. With assets of $7 billion, the Foundation makes approximately $300 million in grants annually. More information is at www.macfound.org.

 

About Amazon.com

 

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as books, movies, music & games, digital downloads, electronics & computers, home & garden, toys, kids & baby, grocery, apparel, shoes & jewelry, health & beauty, sports & outdoors, and tools, auto & industrial.

Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Examples of the services offered by Amazon Web Services are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS), and Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, and the Joyo Amazon websites at www.joyo.cn and www.amazon.cn.

As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

About CreateSpace

 

CreateSpace is a service of On-Demand Publishing LLC, a subsidiary of Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ AMZN). A leader in manufacture on demand services for independent creative content owners, CreateSpace was originally founded as CustomFlix Labs, Inc. in 2002 and acquired by Amazon.com Inc. in 2005. The company's mission is to profitably connect its members to a worldwide audience through multiple channels, including Amazon.com. CreateSpace provides inventory-free, physical distribution of Books, CDs and DVDs on Demand, and video downloads via Amazon Unbox.

Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, significant amount of indebtedness, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007, and subsequent filings.

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