A: As it was prom weekend in LA, I thought I'd make a little list to explain what exactly has to happen for you to get nominated for a Spirit Award.

1. Make a movie.

You can't really be jealous of the nominees if you haven't even made your film yet.

2. Make a movie that people like.

HEIDI: Hi James, thanks so much for doing this! First of all, let's jump right in...I know you had some concern over the fact that neither Christian nor I managed to bring up your company's name when discussing the remaining "traditional" distributors of indie film, and I wanted to give you a chance to express why. Please explain to my readers what you found so worrisome about that, so that we can all learn from it.

A: Just before I left for Park City I spoke on a panel at AFI about indie film and festivals and the process of submitting films to festivals. The ultra-cool Christian Gaines was also on that panel and he had plenty of amazing info, and some very eye-opening ideas about the future of indie film and what the hell we have all been doing wrong.

A: I spoke to a group of cool film students on Monday at Orange County High School of the Arts about all things indie. They were mostly all inquisitive (some snickers in the back of course, but that's to be expected) and all of them had made short films already, and were in the middle of making their second, submitting to

The landscape for indie films and filmmakers has changed so dramatically in the last 12 months that I can't help but wonder this myself sometimes. Thankfully that horrible hell that was 2009 is finally over, as well as a decade that I'd mostly rather forget. As everyone on the planet was making lists of top films, festivals, people, and other lists, I thought I'd look forward rather than back, and make a list of my own for all the things