SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL GOES WEB 2.0

IJ Solutions, an Ontario-based company is using OpenEdit, a powerful Content Management System (CMS) to move Slamdance, a prominent California based independent film festival, from a static web presence into full web 2.0 interactivity with the online film community.

Slamdance asked OpenEdit for help in expanding its popular Slamdance.com website to allow for writing competitions for screenplays and teleplays. Slamdance is now able to host the Anarchy Online Short Film Competition, a Games Competition and the newly announced Slamdance Horror Screenplay Competition, which guarantees the production of an annually chosen script as a feature film.

"Working with IJ Solutions and Open Edit has been one of the best Slamdance experiences since we began 14 years ago,” says Peter Baxter, President and co-founder of Slamdance. “With patience and skill they have delivered a great foundation upon which we can build a virtual community for independent artists, as well as nurture our future success."

By partnering with OpenEdit Inc., IJ Solutions was able to provide Slamdance with the software and technical support to implement and maintain an advanced web application and add important social and community features to the existing Slamdance website. Joel Halse, Director of IJ Solutions, which assumed management of the project, explains: “We assembled a team of experts and took responsibility for making sure the project progressed on time.” Drea Clark, Executive Director of Slamdance adds: “OpenEdit has made the daily upkeep, revisions and content additions to our site easily manageable for a complete novice like myself and enables our site to be dynamic and accessible. The professionals at IJ Solutions have kept us on schedule, increased overall functionality, and have been consistently helpful and productive.”

Powerful and simple, OpenEdit, which is built with Java by President Christopher Burkey and a core team of experts, allows companies to create fast, flexible and lightweight web sites. This easy, open source platform does not require a database and can be used on top of existing html, jsp or php web sites. OpenEdit has everything a client needs for Web Content Management, eCommerce, Digital Asset Management, Automatic Version Control - even through FTP uploading, Events Calendar, Dynamic Layouts, Blog Editing, Usage Tracking, Reporting, File Manager, Notification Tools and much more.

Contacts:

Joel Halse – IJ Solutions: joel@ijsolutions.ca Tel: (705) 424-4199

Julie Riley – OpenEdit Inc. julie@openedit.org Tel: (937) 671-6212

Peter Baxter – Slamdance mail@slamdance.com Tel: (323) 466-1786b

Background:

Building the Slamdance website using the OpenEdit Content Management System, IJ Solutions was able to achieve these critical goals:

Video Catalog Management: Slamdance can upload, edit and delete from their video catalog using a web interface.

Voting Capacity: Anarchy is an ongoing short film competition where visitors can watch each video and vote on their favorite film.

Submissions: Slamdance is able to accept online submissions for all aspects of their organization: video, screenplays, games, etc. This includes the processing of administrator fees.

eCommerce: Online store and payment system

Community: A newsroom, blog, and message board (interactive with the Slamdance online community) with homepage highlights.

User Management: Everything from Administrator accounts to managing the site, to guest accounts for publishing within the forums, can be controlled using the OpenEdit GUI

Online Editing: Slamdance manages their content (text, images, links and menus, etc) via OpenEdit's online editing tools, including the Visual Editor.

Site Search: OpenEdit provides a SEO friendly site, which makes it very accessible to the major search engines. It is fully indexed locally and accessible via the OpenEdit search that is integrated into the Slamdance site

About OpenEdit Inc. (Cincinnati, Ohio)

OpenEdit is based in Cincinnati, Ohio with a part time office in Chile, South America. OpenEdit with partners and solution providers in North America, South America and Europe is able to deploy OpenEdit enabled web sites for clients across the world. Built-in features of all OpenEdit sites include eCommerce, Blog, Content Management with online editing, Photo Gallery / Digital Asset Management and a Members only section. The list of technologies provided with each deployment is quite remarkable, especially considering there are no licensing fees. Software can be downloaded for free from the OpenEdit website.

Contact: Julie Riley

julie@openedit.org, Telephone (937) 671-6212 www.openedit.org

About IJ Solutions (Collingwood, ON Canada)

IJ Solutions is a partnership of professional engineers who combine powerful Internet technologies with professional design to create an Internet presence that works. The IJ Solutions community is a collection of resources to help clients achieve the most out of their web presence. OpenEdit is an important part of the online services provided by IJ Solutions. Multiple sites are deployed each month using this powerful open source CMS platform.

Contact Information: Joel Halse, Director

joel@ijsolutions.ca Tel: (705) 424-4199

www.ijsolutions.ca

About Slamdance Inc. (Los Angeles, California)

A film festival headquartered in Melrose Place, California US, Slamdance’s sole mission is to nurture, support and showcase truly independent works of film. Slamdance has established a unique reputation for premiering new films by first-time writers and directors on limited budgets. The Festival’s goal is to strengthen its year-round efforts to support these artists and to leverage its name and reputation for the further development of other Slamdance media components.

Contact Information: Peter Baxter, President and Co-founder

mail@slamdance.com Tel: (323) 466-1786

www.slamdance.com