What are your postproduction nightmares? Preparing for my DV Expo session http://t.co/fLI7QFU
If you’ve got a post-production nightmare let me know in the comments so I can make sure I address it in my “Avoiding Post Production Nightmares” DV Expo session.
Online video finally chipping away at broadcast TV http://t.co/LLmZhYg
There are some hints that the traditional US cable subscription may be in decline, but not only in the US but around the world are moving toward  more online video and less real-time broadcast.
The survey, which was conducted in Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK, the U.S. and South Korea, consisted of 22 qualitative and 13,000 quantitative interviews, and represented almost 400 million consumers. The conclusion is that the Internet has changed the way we watch TV, but hasn’t cut down much on demand for broadcast television. However, it’s not the demand that’s an issue, but figuring out monetization strategies for what is essentially a new and fragmented delivery platform that’s leading to high drama and various strategies that make finding content a crapshoot for consumers.
We’re not there yet, but we’re heading there.
Just How Rich Are These YouTube Stars? http://t.co/o0F6gIm
The rankings go from just over $100,000 a year up to $300,000 a year. Even for team productions that’s still a decent income from online video. And just like the traditional market, a few people are making good money, and a whole lot more people are making little to nothing from their online video efforts.
But at least it can be done, and young Lucas Cruikshank (a.k.a. “Fred”) with an estimated $149,000 income this year, probably doesn’t have to worry about college tuition fees, if he even wants to go to college.
In other news, Goodnight Burbank has secured a “real” TV deal with Mark Cuban’s HD Net. That’s in addition to the Hulu distribution that they’ve already had. Don’t know what sort of money is involved in the deal, but it’s a long way from the first Goodnight Burbank episodes.
Trivia item: My interview with Hayden Black on the Digital Production BuZZ in October 2007 was his first media interview about the show.
Copyright Infringement and Theft – The Difference http://t.co/Q4U7Tat
The US Supreme Court has ruled that:
In 1985, the Court ruled in Dowling v United States that copyright infringement is not theft, even when dealing with physical objects, such as vinyl records.
And yet, despite that 1985 ruling so-called “intelligent people” – including VP Biden – have blatantly referred to Copyright Infringement as “theft, plain and simple”, in complete contradiction to law and precedent.
In reality the last thing the RIAA and MPAA want is for copyright infringement (a civil issue) to be prosecuted as theft (criminal).
Firstly, the standard of proof is “beyond reasonable doubt” and it’s very, very unlikely that the discovery process in copyright cases would pass muster. It’s never been proven to be reliable in any court anywhere in the world. An IP address does not identify an individual, no matter what the fantasies of the legacy industries in music and film distribution.
Secondly, the penalties are much more reasonable.
Regardless of your opinions on copyright infringement, in the USA, it’s not theft. Personally, I’d prefer “beyond reasonable doubt”. The article compares the Jammie Thomas case as it has proceeded under copyright infringement and how it would have proceeded had it been tried as theft: bottom line – a much smaller fine (with the potential for a short prison term, although unlikely for the very small amount of value “stolen”, as the criminal case works on actual real value: 99c a song!
Good push back against the ever-growing threat to civil liberties by the RIAA/MPAA and the disastrous PROTECT IP proposed legislation, which has the potential to “break” the Internet as we know it. And that’s exactly what they want, and we don’t.
A Response To Felicia Day On How Video Gets Funded In A Fragmented, Digital World http://t.co/mdtcKaD
Felicia Day has had some success in the online video with her The Guild series. Initially fan funded (poorly) and now sponsored (by Microsoft is my memory is accurate) Felicia has a reasonable position as both a participant in the traditional TV series world (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and online. She asks the question on Google Plus:
Brad Bird: Hollywood isn’t brave enough to copy Pixar process http://t.co/Gliw27s
It’s an interesting interview about Brad Bird’s (and Pixar’s) creative process, but I flagged it for the headline, which leads to the second question:
Three authors, three examples of the disruption in publishing http://t.co/ldzT3lx
Both book publishing and film/television are industries that were built on scarcity, that are being disrupted n an age of non-scarcity. That’s not to say that there isn’t success and money to be made in the traditional businesses, but book publishing is an interesting place to look for parallels to television (particularly).
How much money does it really take to make a documentary? http://tinyurl.com/3hu6abx
A good take on budgeting and how the “It takes at least $300,000” rule may not be as rigid now as it once was. Writer Edward J Delaney goes through six fundamental shifts that have changed the equation:
iTunes 10.4 is now AV Foundation based, not QT http://tinyurl.com/3b2auaj
As I’ve written before, AV Foundation is the modern media playback framework for OS X. Originally developed for iOS and OS X it came to OS X with Lion, but Final Cut Pro X uses it, even on Snow Leopard (where AV Foundation is installed as a private framework in 10.6.7 and 10.6.8).
I think Apple are sending a strong message that QuickTime – as a framework for applications to use to play media – is not the way of the future. Â Particularly if you want a 64 bit application. While many parts of QT have been rewritten with a 64 bit wrapper as QTkit, the future is clearly away from QuickTime on OS X.
In fact, the use of QuickTime has been fading over the last decade as Apple moved to H.264/AAC in an MP4 wrapper for distribution purposes early last decade.
And now another of Apple’s media-rich applications appears to be built on AV Foundation now, instead of QuickTime, only falling back to use old QT codecs not supported under AV Foundation.
Storytelling: digital technology allows us to tell tales in innovative new ways http://tinyurl.com/3pwthvc
Author Aleks Krotoski starts out with the importance of story.
Stories are memory aids, instruction manuals and moral compasses. When enlisted by charismatic leaders and turned into manifestos, dogmas and social policy, they’ve been the foundations for religions and political systems. When a storyteller has held an audience captive around a campfire, a cinema screen or on the page of a bestseller, they’ve reinforced local and universal norms about where we’ve been and where we’re going. And when they’ve been shared in the corner shop, at the pub or over dinner they’ve helped us define who we are and how we fit in.
