In these days of economic uncertainty, we've brought you many a blog post about how the sudden unavailability of cash infusions will impact the independent film industry.  It's difficult verging on impossible to get any kind of consensus (fewer film festivals will be bad news because it will mean fewer chances for a movie to break out/fewer film festivals will be good news because it will sift the wheat from the chaff; independent film is dead because there's not enough money to take a chance on anything but a sure thing/independent film will thrive because it will become truly independent again and not rely on studio money and mass marketing), and contrarianism is the rule of the day.

Want proof?  Take a look at this post from the excellent Poverty Jet Set blog, in which the question is posed:  how important is an audience to the success of an film, anyway?  Inspired by the lamentations of Project Pedal over their inability to draw millions of online viewers to clips from their upcoming documentary feature For Thousands of Miles, it seems like an absurd question:  and yet, and yet..."In this age of mass amateurization and instant worldwide publication," argues Mark Schoneveld, "it doesn't matter how many people watch your videos, but rather, the quality of the folks who watch."  After all, he notes, there are YouTube clips that draw in tens of millions of viewers -- but it's purely for the sake of ephemeral novelty, and few if any transform their YouTube fame into money, a career, or anything that will amount to more than a whatever-happened-to moment on VH1 sometime in 2018.

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Via Defamer comes news of a feature film shooting this month in Long Island. It’s called Reality Horror Night, and the cast includes Destiney Moore, Erik Chopin, Paul Grassi, Billy Garcia, Frenchy and Ty White. Perhaps you don’t recognize any of those names, but you may have at least passing familiarity with some of the TV shows that brought them whatever fame they possess: VH1 Rock of Love, The Biggest Loser, The Mole, Survivor and The Amazing Race.

The premise, according to this press release: the reality stars “are invited to participate in a new TV Show where the prize is $1,000,000. Before the first contestant is voted off, a ‘freakish accident’ happens, and they meet their demise. When the second and third guest ‘bite the dust’ our contestants discover that they are not only playing for $1,000,000 but playing for their lives. This light-comedy, light-horror, suspenseful film ponders the question..."Would you kill for $1,000,000?" Little do our Reality Stars know that this night might be considered a scam, a scam for their lives.”

“Light-horror” suggests these folks won’t meet with especially gruesome ends, which is a shame.

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