Openfilm.com, a Website dedicated to offering independent filmmakers a chance to get its foot in the door, has found its first winner.  

“Help,” a short by Val Lauren, has taken the top prize – which earns the director $50,000 in cash and $200,000 in financing. The film tells the story of a man on a desperate mission to save his dying mother’s life. (Watch it here.)

As the next round of the competition opens, some changes are being made, though. Instead of offering four quarterly prizes totally $1 million, Openfilm has decided to awards two annual prizes of $50,000 cash and $450,000 in financing.

“This newly extended time period … will allow more time for our community of filmmakers to submit,” said Dmitry Kozko, Openfilm’s CEO and co-founder. “It will also provide more time for the Openfilm community to screen the submissions as they are uploaded to the site. We feel this provides a more valuable platform for our community.”

Since its launch in April, Openfilm has seen its numbers grow substantially. Nearly 50,000 people have registered with the site and its film catalog now numbers roughly 6,000. The site, which already had a deal in place with Tivo (to syndicate three or four films per week), has also signed distribution agreements with Boxee, Verizon and Canada's Rogers Communications. And over 200 film festivals have signed on to use the company’s technology.

The site aims to be a community for independent filmmakers, letting them upload short works and get feedback from peers and pros. Auteurs can also sell downloadable versions of those works through the site, with Openfilm taking just $0.69 per sale, regardless of the film’s price.

Premium members of Openfilm also have access to an advisory board that includes actors James Caan, Robert Duvall and Scott Caan, along with director Mark Rydell.

“We have a genuine lust for what it is we’re attempting to do,” says Caan, who is also chairman of Openfilm. “The film business right now is not in great shape for the type of talent and the type of films we saw in the late 70s and early 80s – with good stories with good actors and directors. … Some of this dangling in front of the green screen stuff is fine, but there’s too much. I’m starting to realize we have to do something to ensure young people have the opportunities that I had.”

Anthony Zuiker will always be known as the creator of “CSI,” but he’s also the author of the “Level 26” thriller series. Now he’s bringing the two worlds together.  

On the Oct. 14 episode of “CSI,” the forensic investigators will square off against Sqweegel – the “forensic proof” serial killer from Zuiker’s books. Ann Margaret guest stars in the episode.

Single character crossovers from the book to TV world are rare – but Zuiker’s not planning to stop there. Two weeks after the episode airs (and, conveniently enough, the second “Level 26” book hits store shelves), Zuiker hopes to launch an iPad ‘digi-novel’ of the book, which will incorporate several multimedia elements, including a one-hour digital short telling a back story featuring the book’s characters. (Justine Bateman is among the cast.)

Zuker incorporated these cyber-bridges into his first “Level 26” book, but felt they were too disjointed and out of context. Readers were also directed to the book’s Website to view them, which wasn’t ideal. (Readers of “Dark Prophecy,” the second book will also have a chance to watch them online.) By making the book an app – and not just a download from the iBooks store, he was able to incorporate all the interactive elements into a single experience.

“The ideal consumption experience is really on something like the iPad,” he says. “Words pulse as you read them and you can flick your finger and a gunshot hole appears on the screen. It allows you to collect evidence that leads to a separate story line.”

So much for a holiday surprise from Nintendo.  

The company today announced launch details for the 3DS, its upcoming handheld gaming platform that lets users play games in stereoscopic 3D without the need for special glasses. Japanese consumers will be the first to get their hands on the system – starting Feb. 26. U.S. and European gamers will have their chance in March.

Some industry observers had hoped the company would announce a ship date during the fourth quarter of this year, but Nintendo said it was unable to create a sufficient supply of the devices.

When it does arrive, the 3DS is not going to be cheap. While Nintendo did not announce a launch price for Western markets, the 3DS will run roughly $300 in Japan.

Nintendo also today announced a few new features for the system – most notably, a “Virtual Console” which will let owners purchase legacy Game Boy, Game Boy color and Game Boy Advance games. The 3DS will also come packaged with a 2GB SD card, which will likely be used to store both downloaded games and 3D pictures taken with the 3DS’s integrated 3D camera.

It will also feature an enhanced “tag mode” – meaning users will be able to exchange data with other nearby 3DS units even if their game is not in the 3DS at the time. This means players on different schedules can still share gameplay elements.

The system will also support Augmented Reality gaming – coming with 6 AR cards to use with those games – but Nintendo did not offer many details on that component.

The pricing for the 3DS could be a concern for the company. If Nintendo stays in the $299 range when it launches in the U.S. (something that’s hardly a guarantee), that puts it in the same territory as the iPhone, which has functionality far beyond gaming. (Software is also expected to be significantly more expensive than it is for titles from the app store, although the company did not specify what it will charge for 3DS titles.)

Nintendo’s hoping its catalog of strong titles, including Mario, Zelda and Pokemon, will prove a strong draw. And to double down, it’s also in discussions with Hollywood studios to bring 3D films to the 3DS – although it once again did not offer any additional details on those talks at today’s conference. 

Hulu seems to be making noises that it could be nearing the end of its beta period on its Hulu Plus service. The company has announced another pair of set-top boxes that will begin carrying the service soon.  

Tivo has signed on with the company to bring Hulu Plus to its Premiere DVRs in the coming months, and all Roku streaming media players will begin carrying it this fall.

That could put a fair bit of pressure on Apple TV. Roku has been aggressively pricing its box recently, with devices starting at $59 for a device that supports both Netflix and Hulu Plus streaming, along with several other services.

Hulu Plus previously announced streaming deals with the forthcoming Boxee Box and the PlayStation 3. Sharp Internet-enabled TVs also carry the service and the Xbox 360 plans to begin carrying it next year.

It’s not enough to make cable companies truly nervous just yet – but it’s certainly another thing for them to watch as the threat of low-cost streaming programming continues to grow and threaten their customer base. 

Research in Motion, the company behind the Blackberry, is still fighting Apple tooth and nail in the smartphone market – and it’s not planning to cede the tablet space to the company, either.  

The company today unveiled its Playbook tablet, a 7-inch 9.7mm-thick device that’s due early next year in the U.S., with plans for an international roll-out in the second quarter of 2011.

The PlayBook appears to be targeted squarely at the business audience. It comes with a special version of the Blackberry operating system that runs multitasking and offers video playback of 1080p (with HDMI out). 

Like the iPad, it comes with an e-Reader application and dual cameras for video conferencing. Unlike the iPad, it also supports Adobe’s Flash.

The system has a 1 Ghz dual-core CPU with 1 GB of RAM. It’s also able to tether directly with a Blackberry device via Bluetooth. It’s WiFi only right now, but RIM says it plans to ship 3G and 4G models in the future.

The biggest detail is, of course, the one that’s missing. RIM gave no heads up on what the PlayBook will be priced at.

A marketing video of the device in action can be found after the break.

Steve Wadsworth, president of Disney’s Interactive Media Group – the division overseeing video games, online virtual worlds and the company’s mobile efforts – has resigned after an 11-year tenure with the company.  

The departure leaves a vacuum at one of the company’s most important - but often troubled - divisions. 

"For many reasons, now is the right time for me to move on," Wadsworth said in an email to staff. “While it is difficult to leave a great company, an exciting business and a wonderful group of people, my desire and excitement to pursue other opportunities is too great to ignore.”

Disney’s expected to announce Wadsworth’s replacement soon. One leading candidate is John Pleasants, CEO of Playdom, the social gaming company Disney recently purchased for $563.2 million (along with a performance-linked earn out for investors of up to $200 million).

Wadsworth has never been a favorite of Wall Street due to his penchant for pricey acquisitions that failed to achieve breakout success, but his unit has been showing signs of strength recently and is poised to have a banner year with titles like “Epic Mickey” nearing release.

The growing threat of Web video distribution is one the cable industry needs to pay closer attention to, according to the CEO of Verizon. Ivan Seidenberg, at a Goldman media conference in NY, told attendees he doesn’t expect future generations of customers to have any interest in buying cable bundles.  

"Young people are pretty smart. They're not going to pay for something they don't need to," he said. "Over the top is going to be a pretty big issue for cable."

The comment, captured by All Things Digital, points out a growing concern about “cord cutting” – people swapping their cable subscriptions for Internet video. While it’s not as simplistic or widespread as proponents make it out to be now, it is growing and could pose a long-term threat.

Seidenberg noted that while Verizon itself offers those bundles, he expects them to go away eventually.

 “I think cable has some life left in its model…but that it is going to get disintermediated over the next several years.”

While Web-exclusive series have limited audience, some – like Felicia Day’s “The Guild” and Kevin Pollak’s “Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show” – have found some traction. The bigger threat, though, comes from services like Hulu and Netflix. 

The advent of the app era has certainly changed how people view their phones, but its real impact has been less on telecommunications – and more on the electronics industry.  

A new study by Deloitte, released today, finds that mobile apps actually aren’t a key driver on smartphone sales, but they do play a big role in people’s decision-making when they’re looking for something like a gaming console or GPS.

Deloitte found that nearly 42 percent of app users have reduced or completely eliminated their use of MP3 players, choosing instead to focus on smartphones or tablets (such as the iPhone and iPad). One-third of those same users say they have also stopped using AM/FM radios, handheld gaming systems (like the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP) and stand-alone GPS devices.

Despite the huge impact on other technologies, apps are top of mind for just 18 percent of the people looking at smartphones. The majority (some 58 percent) say price, camera, size and keyboard style are what influence them.

eReaders, meanwhile, are starting to expand their footprint. Deloitte’s study found 10 percent of the country has bought an e-book. Of those, more than half say they’re reading more now than when they strictly bought bound books – and 61 percent prefer eBooks to the traditional format. 

Don’t expect to see “The Big Bang Theory,” "The Mentalist" or “Smallville” among Apple TV’s rentals anytime soon.  

Warner Bros., the studio behind those and several other hit shows, is among one of the highest profile holdouts for the service – and recent comments by CEO Barry Meyer would seem to indicate the company has no plans to change its mind soon.

Meyer last week told attendees of a Merrill Lynch investment conference that Apple’s plan to charge 99 cents to rent episodes was too low – and would hurt sales of full seasons, according to AP. Instead, the company prefers the $2.99 price for permanent downloads on iTunes.

It’s part of the continuing battle between Apple and the networks as streaming programming becomes more and more mainstream. Seeing the power position Apple has assumed in the music industry, networks are carefully guarding their territory in negotiations with the Cupertino-based company.

Fox and Disney, of course, seem to have been won over. Both studios, along with the BBC, will participate in the Apple TV rental program when it launches at the end of the month. 

In less than four days, “Halo: Reach” made an enormous impact on Xbox Live.  

Bungie Studios has put out a roundup of some “Reach” statistics from the first week of play. And if you thought that $200 million in sales in the first 24 hours was impressive, you ain’t seen nothing yet…

Between Tuesday and an unspecified time Friday afternoon, here’s what players had achieved and accomplished in the game:

Games played: 31,000,000 

Player-games recorded: 98,000,000

Daily Challenges completed: 8,214,338 

Weekly Challenges completed: 255,996 

Total Credits earned: 78,499,560,895 

Man-years spent in matchmade games: 953 

Man-years spent in campaign: 1365 

Files uploaded: 854,107 

Recommendations sent to friends: 577,804

Files downloaded: 4,619,455