I think this is great and a good concept to try. Do you know if advertising budgets are in the 100k budget?

Although Paranormal Activity was shot on a low budget, I am sure they spent a good amount on all the advertising.

Dain, that is development, production, and I would think post costs, not P&A.

This is a great idea. It'll be interesting to see how they decide to pick their ten projects. I hope it's not an online voting system (simply because those become a contest of "who has the most popular blog with the most readers").

I have bookmarked that page for potential future use!

Mitchell Riggs, who co-wrote and starred in KATTERSKILLS FALLS, is a friend of mine, he's directed several of my plays ... a very good guy.

He got an indie spirit award nom for that picture, if I remember right.

Fantastic. Hopefully Insurge will prove its worth and Paramount can coax other mega-studios to do the same.

It would wonderful if in the future we have a terraced Hollywood -- several levels of budgeting, several levels of story. And it will force some to economize their stories, take out the crap that inflates budgets. However, if this studio format does succeed, we may simply see more and more films that should just be plays. I'm hoping producers can keep their films cinematic.

I like the idea. It seems like a good melding of Indie & studio sensibilities.

The production is Indie-minded: Keep the costs low (& hopefully take some creative chances).

The marketing is Studio-minded: Start with an appealing genre concept & market the shit out of it.

Hopefully the studio will really support the filmmakers from start to finish and not leave them flapping in the wind half way thru.