Vimeo announced yesterday at SXSW 2013  that it's  Introducing the Vimeo On Demand, an open platform that enables you to sell your work directly to your audience.

The cool stuff: Design Vimeo On Demand will allow for people to use custom domains for the VOD page, so that you can set up your own destination site. Vimeo On Demand will be built into the ecosystem and discoverable through search, and will be part of the “following” system, showing up in feed. Any purchase goes to the watch later queue so you that it can be watched on connected TVs, mobile devices, etc.

Distrify, the online leader in social cinema, announces an expanded partnership with The D-Word, the worldwide online community for documentary professionals. With a 10,000-strong membership including Oscar-winning documentary directors and producers, The D-Word is the most active online community dedicated to the art, craft and love of documentaries. The partnership makes films like Urbanized and War Photographer instantly available to documentary fans around the world.

Distrify has previously announced deals with Films Transit International, Story, Danish Documentary, and the British Film Institute. Documentaries from these companies, including award-winning films like The Monastery by Phie Ambo and Steve Jobs - the Lost Interview will form a part of The D-Word Collection.

The D-Word, founded by filmmaker Doug Block in 1999, has partnered with Distrify since June 2011, but will now run Distrify’s first official Curated Collection, as part of Muvies.com - Distrify’s new curated VOD platform launched this month with the support of the MEDIA Programme of the European Union. The D-Word has compiled a featured selection of films targeted at documentary professionals and enthusiasts alike.

Ben Kempas, a co-host of The D-Word and a producer at the Scottish Documentary Institute, says: “This is a brilliant way to share the films we like, not just our own documentaries but any film available through Distrify. They’ve made it really easy: you just click a ‘collect’ button, define a category, and it’s up there. We’re also going to curate a collection here at the Scottish Documentary Institute, where we really want to make use of the option to write personal reviews of the docs we love.”

The D-Word Collection includes categories focused on films made by members as well as featured strands chosen by editors. The D-Word earns a revenue share through Distrify’s unique automatic affiliate system, and viewers of The D-Word collection can quickly and easily join in – clicking to rent, buy, or share any film in the collection.

While the films may have different geo-restrictions, the Distrify collection is automatically filtered to only return search results that are available to each viewer, giving documentary fans a personal experience without disappointment. Viewers who subscribe as followers of The D-Word Collection will see newly reviewed films in their Distrify Dashboard on a regular basis.

“I have been a member of The D-Word since I made my first feature documentary in 2004 and love the true spirit of the community on d-word.com,” says Distrify co-founder Peter Gerard, who was also responsible for the redesign and rebuild of The D-Word’s unique community platform in 2007. “Many docs start as ideas here and are then nurtured through every phase of production and editing by the community. It’s great that thanks to Distrify, The D-Word is now a place to discover and watch docs as well.”

The D-Word collection is now available on d-word.com integrated next to the rest of the online community’s tools, including private and public discussions, member database, classifieds, and a members’ film marketplace. While members have been able to promote documentaries and provide links to purchase in the existing marketplace, the new Collection from the Distrify partnership will be their first curated platform for instant viewing of documentaries.

“This is only the beginning,” says Gerard. “Soon anyone, from a well-known critic to any film fan, will be making and promoting collections of their favourite films – with the ability for your followers to watch instantly and for you to earn a revenue share from your recommendations.”

DM - In your book Making Documentary Films and Videos you write about "recording reality" we found this very inspiring since most of the viewers take for granted that documentaries presents only actual facts, but you suggests that it's in the hands of the filmmaker. Do you think it is possible to produce a documentary that presents %100 truth?

BH - It’s important to realize that reality does not equal truth and that documentaries neither record nor show reality. What a camera records in a “real” situation is a tiny fraction of what may be happening at the time. And it records it in a two-dimensional image with highly selective sound. Then what is shown to the audience in a finished documentary is a only a small fraction of the tiny fraction that was recorded. That’s why I write about making a documentary as a process of creating a model of the event that was filmed. Like the scale model of a ship, a plane, or a building, it does not—and cannot—show everything that was present in the original. But it should be an accurate and truthful model. And accomplishing that depends, ultimately, on the honesty of the filmmaker.

I think it is possible for a filmmaker to produce a documentary that is 100 percent truth (not opinion) as he or she understands it. That’s the filmmaker’s responsibility. I am also certain it is not possible to produce a one-sided documentary (think Michael Moore) that is anywhere close to 100 percent truth.

The more a documentary relies on visual evidence, the closer it is likely to come to some sort of truth; the more it depends on words—especially interview sound bites—the further it is likely to stray from the truth.

DM - Can you elaborate the term "Visual Evidence" and how we as documentary filmmakers should look to find visual evidence?

BH - Communicating with an audience through an existential, visual medium is far different from communicating in a face-to-face or voice-to-voice situation. Audiences have the perverse habit of assuming that the way they think you are communicating is the way that you intended to communicate. As far as they are concerned, the message they get is the only message there is. And you have no opportunity to defend yourself — to revise, clarify, or explain what you actually meant. Therefore, it is important to think of the images you shoot as visual evidence. It is not enough that you can argue the case for what your images mean. You’ll never get the chance. The only real test is whether the images can stand on their own and argue the case themselves.

You start the search for visual evidence in preproduction by planning ways to tell your story in pictures rather than through interviews and B-roll. You ask yourself, “How can I show this, so an audience will get it?” In production you film people’s behavior, and not just their talk. You keep the camera running in the certain belief that if you have chosen an appropriate situation, something interesting will happen—maybe not right away, but eventually.  For example, in The Hobart Shakespeareans there is a moment in which Rafe Esquith is reading to his class from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  It’s the point at which Huck is trying to decide what to do about his friend, Jim, a runaway slave.  At first he determines to do the “right thing” and participate in the return of the slave.  He says, “I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life.”  And then he thinks about his friendship with Jim and changes his mind.

A Discussion With Orly Ravid From The Film Collaborative- What Chance An Indie Filmmaker Has These Days?

Orly Ravid and her partner Jeffrey Winter have formed The Film Collaborative (TFC), a non profit organization which offers a full range of affordable distribution, educational and marketing services to independent filmmakers looking to reach out to traditionally underserved audiences. TFC is the first non-profit, full-service provider dedicated to the distribution of independent film, including narrative features, documentaries and shorts

What lessons filmmakers need to learn in order to stand out?

Filmmakers can look for a free digital book that we are producing – SELLING YOUR FILM WITHOUT SELLING YOUR SOUL. It's a case study of filmmakers who half or all gone through distribution DIY. Mostly it's a combination of hybrid traditional and DIY. At the end of the day you're talking about different stores so if your film is very known, if it's available on iTunes it will do some business, if your film is not know being on itunes isn't going to do better for you than distributing on your website. And if your film is already known and they have fans, they are not going to be unhappy buying from your website. Under Our Skin, a documentary about lyme diseases sold 25,000 units a month.The topic was not covered before.

The key is that your film does not sell itself unless it has big names or something very commercial and popular. If your film is a small film it's going to speak to some people and not all people, and I think that's a lesson people will have to learn which that they have to be engaging their community, the people who are interested in their film, while they are making their film and once it's finished for the whole time. So that when they make their film available on their own site and on their own Facebook page, which they can do now,  people will actually care and choose to rent it or buy it. The one thing you can always do is make your film available, if you done your job, people will be happy to watch it from your website.

"The question is do I do digital distribution with the festivals? and with Sundance, I have to admit the money was terrible, but you know what? Had they tried it with their bigger films, of course it would have worked better"

What do you think about the window system that is now changing?