Digital Distribution: Bill Rose, THE LOSS OF NAMELESS THINGS

With over 20 years of experience producing and directing documentaries and short films, Bill Rose’s work has been seen on television, the big screen and the film festival circuit. Today, Rose has come to embrace online distribution; his documentary THE LOSS OF NAMELESS THINGS is available on various platforms through the Digital Distribution Lab, a joint initiative between ITVS and PBS.

“I’m really psyched that it’s on Hulu and that it’s reaching new audiences. People are seeing the film that wouldn’t have seen it otherwise.” Rose says. ITVS digital partner Hulu has recently become the No. 2 video site in the United States behind YouTube, with 309 million video views last month.

In THE LOSS OF NAMELESS THINGS, Rose uses interviews with Oakley “Tad” Hall III and his friends and family to tell the haunting story of what happened after a single moment on a slippery bridge snatched Hall’s brilliant mind, and left him a stranger to himself and those who loved him. The film has sparked a flurry of new comments on Hulu and SnagFilms. While not that long ago, the film could have slipped off of the radar, Rose is heartened by these discussions.

“I’m excited about the fact that we can still be having a conversation about the film three years after it debuted on TV. We’re really seeing the viability of this, long tail,” says Rose, who is currently traveling the festival circuit to promote his latest documentary THIS DUST OF WORDS, another portrait of an early bloomer whose life went off the rails.

Though the simultaneous distribution of online video and DVD sales had worried him, Rose is encouraged by the idea that “the more available the film is out there in the world, the more it increases viability in all markets.”

Rose tells THE LOSS OF NAMELESS THINGS fans that Oakley Hall III is currently in Albany, NY directing a puppet theater production of Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry. Curtis Burch, former vice president of development for James Cameron, is working on the feature film version of THE LOSS OF NAMELESS THINGS.

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