Social Media rocks Film and TV http://bit.ly/cGNVRF Anything that gets the audience more engaged is good.
I’ve long thought that integrating social media into a production is the clue to success, and these case studies support this. If you’re going to be at Showbiz Expo anyway, this might make it worthwhile. (Otherwise, give Showbiz Expo a miss, big bore, and they try and upsell throughout registration, even pre-registered get the hard sell.)
The latest XDCAM updates (for those who care) http://bit.ly/cYHEGK
Firmware updates, wireless logging and other improvements for the XDCAM product family. Including this:
The PDW-HR1 will also get an update in the near future. The HR1 is a mobile XDCAM disc player and recorder, but if you look on the side of it you’ll also find two SxS card slots. New firmware will allow footage from an EX camera to be transferred onto an XDCAM disc. The video clips can be transferred as data (into the UserData folder on the disc) or transcoded to match the codecs found in the XDCAM HD camcorders. This is a great product for anyone mixing XDCAM disc and SxS cards.
XDCAM EX backup to XDCAM discs. Sony claim the discs have a life > 30 years. Will the format?
The difference between marketing, advertising, PR and branding. http://bit.ly/M745k
A nice simple cartoon that sums up the difference quite nicely.
If ‘Piracy’ Is Killing Filmmaking, Why Do Nigeria, China And India Have Thriving Movie Businesses? http://bit.ly/boSQWe Damned good question!
As China, Nigeria and India are hotbeds of “piracy”, why is it that they still have thriving (bigger than Hollywood) movie production and distribution  businesses?  If we actually listened to the garbage that the MPAA puts out (usually without factual basis) then conventional wisdom would be that piracy is killing the movie business (and yet the movie business keeps having record years).
Perhaps it’s not piracy, just an unwillingness to understand how the world has changed combined with a distaste for actually providing value. Movie theater owners: stop treating people like criminals and perhaps they’d come back. Stop overcharging for garbage food and beverage; make an experience that people want. Adapt and provide value, then you’ll discover that piracy is not the problem: you, the studios and the executives therein are the problem.
Want to monetize online video? Make an app for that. http://bit.ly/b1gdo3 Long thought that an App was a great way to market a project.
Its not for nothing that ABC have a very successful iPad app. It’s long been part of my thinking around iPhone/iTouch that apps are a great way to wrap up a project: put the previews, purchashable items (not only the media), community and so on, in one place.
Internet video startups Roku and Boxee are also enabling video publishers to build apps that can be monetized. Both companies have launched software development kits (SDKs) to enable third-party content publishers to build applications or channels on their hardware devices, and both are committed to enabling publishers to charge for content directly through their systems.