This morning, I’m thrilled to announce the official launch of Cyan’s next big project: The First Cut Film Series.

The idea is simple: find the top five film students in the country, then produce and theatrically release each of their first feature films.

I’m excited about the Series for a lot of reasons, but first and foremost because of all the great people involved. For example, we have some heavyweight indie producers attached to each Executive Produce one of the five films; the lineup includes Jeb Brody (Little Miss Sunshine), Rene Bastian and Linda Moran (Transamerica), Scott Macaulay and Robin O’Hara (Raising Victor Vargas) and Michael Roiff (Waitress).

There’s a lot more info, as well as an application – open to any current graduate or undergraduate film (or related major) student or alum of the last two years – up at www.firstcutfilmseries.com.

Help us spread the word!

At the request of several friends in the hedge fund world, late this month I’ll be giving a talk titled ‘How Not to Get Screwed Investing in Film.” About 65 folks have RSVP’ed thus far, but we still have a few more seats.

The talk is in midtown Manhattan, from 7:00-8:30pm on June 28th. So, if you’d like to attend (or if you can’t attend but would just like to get a copy of the slides and audio), email my office and let us know.

I’ll do my best not to make it suck.

Well, not immediately next, as that’s actually Naming Number Two, which hits theaters nationwide beginning July 27th:

But, right after that, Cyan embarks on a ridiculously ambitious project I’m officially announcing here for the first time:

The First Cut Film Lab, a brand-sponsored series of five first feature films from the top five film school students in the country.

Applications in September, finished films in theaters one year later, September ’08.

This one’s going to be a doozy.

Political strategists like to say that politics is retail. Despite the big ad budgets and televised campaigns, it’s the good old fashioned hand shaking and baby kissing that actually swings votes. As we gear up for Cyan’s next film release, we’re branching a bit outside of industry norm, and betting along the same lines.

We’ll be releasing the film fairly broadly for an indie movie – in NYC, for example, on five screens. So a big win for us would be a $10k per screen average opening weekend. That would set up the film for easy national expansion with strong theater chain support.

Again, $10k average, fairly broad release. But hitting that means, for the New York screens, getting just 5000 people in all of New York City to see the film. Just five thousand!

Given the relatively small size of that number, and given that we’re opening the film initially in a finite number of cities (four the first weekend, eight more the next), we’re betting it’s practical – and potentially hugely helpful – to work retail politics in every single one of those cities.

So, this week, we’ve been pulling together ten-person street teams in each of those cities, and lining up bulk orders of postcards stapled to silk-flower leis (as the film is about a Fijian family in New Zealand), enough to hand out 10,000 of them in each city in front of theaters, churches, nail salons, anywhere and everywhere we think we might find movie-going members of our target demographic.

Sure we’ll also be driving our standard print, online and radio publicity and advertising pushes. And, given that we’re a degree removed from a successful sale (you buy tickets from theaters, not from us), it may prove nearly impossible for us to determine which route is actually putting butts in seats.

Still, we think it’s worth the effort. Do what everyone else does, and you get what everyone else gets. Which, in the world of indie film distribution, sadly isn’t too much.

Continuing the ‘excitement’ of moving into new office space: we’re still without land lines, and cell coverage remains dodgy at best in our semi-industrial loft of a space.

As a result, I’ve been having a lot of conversations like:

Me: So, our media buying plan [silence intermixed with crackling and popping sounds for five or ten seconds] by mid April.

AMC / Loews Executive: Are you on a cell phone??

Me: Haha…. no, of course not… [climbs on window ledge in hopes of better reception].

My recent stretch of working from home ended this Monday, when Cyan moved into a new office space just below Union Square.

And while I’ll certainly miss the ten foot commute, I’m fortunate to be working in an industry where I can come to work with my hair looking just as ridiculously unkempt as it did in the privacy of my own living room.

Brian Grazer, look out.

Despite an Academy Awards full of relatively few surprises (though, Melissa Etheridge? Melissa Etheridge!?!?), this year’s Cyan Oscar Pool contestants were all over the map.

At the top of the heap was, well, me. I submitted an entry to test out the system before linking it, and my own guesses were closer to right than any of you suckers. And while that probably means I’m justified in running a movie company, it also violates what the fine print would say about no employee entries, if this competition had fine print.

So, tossing me out of the race, and knocking off just a couple more right answers, we get our first eligible winner, “Dahlia Thompso”, which I think actually may be Dahlia Thompson typing too fast to include the trailing letter n. If so, Mrs. T, please weigh in to claim your prize.

And then, at the other end of the spectrum, is our fabled ‘booby prize’, is a tie between Kelly Jeide and Christine, who, wisely, went last-nameless. If either Kelly or Christine care to own up, there are DVD prize packs headed their ways as well; heaven knows they need some good movies.

[For these three ladies, and for anyone else feeling the need to weigh in on Oscars, self-aggrandizement, etc., email is newman [at] cyanpictures.com]

While most of Cyan’s efforts these days are on the distribution side, we also have a thumb in the production pie. Witness Premium, an urban comedy in which Cyan invested, that opens tomorrow in select Southern markets.

We’re not distributing the film ourselves, and, to be frank, it’s not as near and dear to our hearts as Cyan’s next releases (for the record: Naming Number Two, which hits theaters Mother’s Day weekend, and Speed & Angels, which should follow shortly thereafter in mid June). But, if you live in in Georgia, North Carolina or Virginia, and you don’t have any other plans, check it out. It’s sure as hell better than The Number 23, or anything else opening wide this weekend.

Yes, I know I’m supposed to be writing about web sites right now. But, as we did it last year, and as we wanted to do it again, I’m taking a quick break to announce the now Second Annual Cyan Pictures Oscar Pool. Weigh in with your predictions, and the closest guess will win a care package of DVDs of Cyan’s next five releases.

[Also, please use your full name at the bottom of the form; we aren’t collecting email addresses, so will instead be announcing the winner’s name the day after the Oscars at cyanpictures.com and here at self-aggrandizement.com.]

Via Blackberry Messenger:

Josh: I’m sitting at a table with Gary Coleman
Jess: Wawaweewa
Josh: Wawaweewa indeed

My Sundance experience is now incontrovertibly complete.