Don’t Look for a TV in Television’s Future http://nyti.ms/b7L7iJ
One reporter’s experience of watching the world cup almost everywhere but on a conventional TV. While true to a point, hours spent watching traditional TV are still (on average) increasing, largely because there are more outlets.
But the future is certainly a more diverse viewing environment. Any content, any screen, anytime, for a fair price.
Oh wait, no-one actually offers what I want to buy.
http://bit.ly/bClOpT Even Harry Potter Pic Loses Money Because Of Warner Bros’ Phony Baloney Net Profit Accounting
Says Deadline.com:
EXCLUSIVE: Signing a deal that makes anyone a net profit participant in a Hollywood movie deal has always been a sucker’s bet. In an era where studios have all but eliminated first dollar gross and invited talent to share the risk and potential rewards, guess what? Net profit deals are still a sucker’s bet. I was slipped a net profit statement (below) for Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, the 2007 Warner Bros sequel. Though the film grossed $938.2 million worldwide, the accounting statement below conveys that the film is still over $167 million in the red.
It’s long been known that you shouldn’t take a “net profit” share of a movie since no movie with such a deal will ever make a profit.
More reasons why the alternative to major studios are better.
[Update] Techdirt (and others) are commenting on the leaked accounting and add that juries are no longer falling for “Hollywood Accounting” having awarded $270 million against Disney for Celador (the originator of the Millionaire Franchise) and $23 million to Don Johnson for profits owed on “Nash Bridges”.
Now, that’s all fascinating from a general business perspective, but now it appears that Hollywood Accounting is coming under attack in the courtroom… and losing. Not surprisingly, your average juror is having trouble coming to grips with the idea that a movie or television show can bring in hundreds of millions and still “lose” money. This week, the big case involved a TV show, rather than a movie, with the famed gameshow Who Wants To Be A Millionaire suddenly becoming “Who Wants To Hide Millions In Profits.” A jury found the whole “Hollywood Accounting” discussion preposterous and awarded Celador $270 million in damages from Disney, after the jury believed that Disney used these kinds of tricks to cook the books and avoid having to pay Celador over the gameshow, as per their agreement.
On the same day, actor Don Johnson won a similar lawsuit in a battle over profits from the TV show Nash Bridges, and a jury awarded him $23 million from the show’s producer. Once again, the jury was not at all impressed by Hollywood Accounting.
YouTube to gather videos for ‘Life in a Day’ movie http://yhoo.it/9VzNPy
YouTube is asking people to upload footage of their daily lives.Macdonald (“The Last King of Scotland,” “State of Play”) serves asdirector and will edit together a feature-length documentary from the submitted material. Scott (“Gladiator,” “Robin Hood”) will produce.
Interesting, but something of a gimmick?
3DTV poses no extra health risk: expert http://bit.ly/9KWU2N
Well, that’s that. The Sydney Morning Herald is my go-to “3D” news source (not). The 30% of people who can’t see 3D stereoscopy or get headaches from it clearly are imagining it.
From my April 14 post “More good news for 3D“:
More good news about 3D http://bit.ly/dfZD8Z Don’t drink and watch. (Kind of makes it impossible to watch football in 3D!)
Samsung warns:
“Pregnant women, the elderly, sufferers of serious medical conditions, those who are sleep deprived or under the influence of alcohol should avoid utilising the unit’s 3D functionality.â€
Of course the Sydney Morning Herald expert has a solution for those without 3D or who see it badly: Cover one eye!
For budget conscious TV viewers, Prof Clifford also said a “poor man’s 3DTV” experience was at hand – viewers could simply cover one eye when watching ordinary television.
“By covering the second eye, you lose the cue from that eye that tells you the screen is in fact flat and so the image appears more in-depth and realistic,” Prof Clifford said.
“You could say it’s a kind of poor man’s 3DTV.”
The ’09 – ’10 TV season marked the first time no regularly scheduled show averaged more than 25 million viewers – Brad Adgate.
Fragmenting audiences across broadcast and cable leaves fewer viewers per show:
“Light” has its own devoutly faithful followers, to be sure, although that number has declined. When it comes to daytime drama, people are far more likely to be talking about the latest blowup on ABC’s “The View,” which averages 4.25 million viewers.
The final episode of “Cheers” 16 years ago drew 80.4 million viewers. The last “Friends” five years ago had 52.5 million viewers. Thursday’s series finale of “ER” drew 16.4 million. Among adults age 18 to 49—the money demo—Advertising Age noted it did 14 percent of the business of the finale of “Cheers” and 24 percent of what “Friends” did.
Just part of the inevitable division of audience. The trick is to work out how to produce within the new budget realities.
The Shocking Media Habits Of 8-18 Year Olds http://bit.ly/bc1BzP
Henry Blodget takes another look at the Kaiser Family Foundation survey of 2000 families about the media habits of 8-18 year olds. As this group grows, they become “the new normal” for media consumption.
No real surprises in the results, but how very different is the audience for broadcast Television where more than half the audience are outside the desirable 18-40 demographic.
Other results from the Kaiser survey:
- Kids consume a heck of a lot of media–and more all the time. Basically, if kids are awake, they’re consuming media. And, increasingly, they’re consuming multiple forms of media at the same time.
- Kids’ print media consumption is tiny and falling.
- Kids’ digital media consumption is going through the roof.
Bob Zelin paraphrased “tape is dead” http://bit.ly/93zcji under “Injest”.
If you consider what he says under injest, he’s saying tape isn’t part of a modern plant:
But what is universally happening, whether we like it or not, is that all sources are becoming data — whether from Panasonic P2, Sony XDCAM EX and NX, JVC GY series cameras; Convergent Design nano- Flash, AJA Ki Pro, Canon and Nikon DSLR cameras; and of course, high end, hi-res cameras from ARRI, RED, and others. It is a fantasy that Sony HDCAM SR tape will remain the format of choice for high-end ingest, as this will fade away quickly — no matter how much money all of us have invested in these various tape formats. One workaround to preserve the investment in HDCAM SR cameras: capture files to the Sony SRW-1 disk recorder.
Of course you still need to get these digital files into your system. The single most impressive ingest product that I saw was the Sonnet Technologies Qio, pronounced Cue-Eye-Oh. Using a single PCIe slot, it gives you two P2 readers, two Sony SxS readers, and two CF Card readers.
“It’s almost as good as 3D” say a precocious 7 yo at Hollywood Bowl 4 July FireWorks Spectacular.
Seriously, it’s come to this: real life and in 3D, fireworks are “almost” as good as 3D… cinema? It was said repeatedly.
3D might have a much better future than I have been thinking.
But kid, it’s real life, it is real 3D. Fireworks is one time when I don’t want the “3D” coming toward me. Thank ou.
Otherwise, Great Show Hollywood Bowl. Should be great on Sunday with another “rehearsal” tomorrow night. 🙂
Why iAd Won’t Meet Steve Jobs’ Expectations http://bit.ly/cVQdTO
GigOm writer Colin Gibbs gives five reasons why iAds won’t be the success Steve Jobs predicts them to be:
I’m not sure if any are compelling. Personally iAds are some of the least offensive ad insertions (remembering that I’m basically against all irrelevant advertising, and since it’s all irrelevant…). I’m not really qualified to comment on whether or not they’ll be a success – personally I prefer other methods of funding than Ads.
Except I did write that piece a couple of days ago on “How to Get Disney to fund your next production“, which was basically about aggregating all communication on a project into an App and using in-app commerce and iAds to fund the production. (Disney only got the reference because their Pixar ads kept appearing in Jobs’ keynote.)
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Story is free http://bit.ly/948TJP
Writer John August suggests that the lack of real plot in many indie productions is a consequence of the “small and independent” focus: story is perceived as too expensive to produce (and it can be if you go too big).
A lot of story can happen even when you’re constrained to a few locations. Hamlet takes place in a few rooms. So does The Usual Suspects. Both Go and The Nines pack a lot into each of their three-part sections. And while Sex, Lies and Videotape might seem low-plot, the story keeps forcing characters to make choices and face the consequences.
In meeting with the screenwriters at Sundance, I challenged them to look for scenes in which characters were talking about things and show them doing those things. Often, the omitted scenes weren’t more expensive than what they would replace — but they were more difficult to write. The beginning of an affair is trickier than showing it mid-course. A trapped child is uncomfortable to write, but compelling to watch.
The writing is always going to be the least expensive but most challenging part of the process. Making a low-budget movie is a study in compromises. Story shouldn’t be one of them.