Category: Business

Distribution Item of Interest The Business of Production

The Terence and Philip Show Episode 24: The Netflix Advantage

Post author By Philip
Post date April 4, 2011

Episode 24: The Netflix Advantage http://tinyurl.com/3urdxts

Terence and Philip consider the changes to the financial dynamics caused by Netflix’s funding ofHouse of Cards. Is Netflix a new studio model? Â Where’s the opportunity for innovation in programming if everything is data driven?

Philip’ NAB session on “Growing and Monetizing an Audience” is mentioned.Â If you want to go and haven’t yet registered register atÂ http://bit.ly/NABSM08 to get the discount automatically, or atÂ http://www.nabshow/register using the code SM08.

Business & Marketing Random Thought

What is creativity, art, Art and design?

Post author By Philip
Post date April 3, 2011
3 Comments on What is creativity, art, Art and design?

Recent conversations – in person and on Twitter – have had me thinking about creativity and art: what are they and how do they apply to film, television and other production?

Most people associate “art” with the fine arts, but I think the term gets used without much real content. Most often “art” is conflated with “creativity”. With the additional complication that most people don’t understand what they mean by “creativity”, once again conflating it with fine art.

Business & Marketing General Random Thought

How disaster proof are you?

Post author By Philip
Post date March 29, 2011
7 Comments on How disaster proof are you?

After perhaps one tsunami video too many, we got to talking seriously about backup and how “secure we were”. It was a disturbing revelation, particularly for people who live in an earthquake zone where the next “big one” is expected before I die!

Of course we both have dedicated drives for our Time Machine backups (being all OS X based here) but they’re in the same physical space as our computers, so if for some reason that was destroyed, we’d be no better off than having no backup. Â Ditto the demonstration media and archives of projects. Locally they’re stored on a RAID 1 drive for redundancy.

Having started raising the question, what are the answers? And that leads to the examination of what it is that you would need to get your “life back”, at least close to where it is now. I thought I’d share our thinking to stimulate your thinking, not only about a total disaster, but an immediate smaller one.

Distribution Item of Interest

Death to the Shiny Disc

Post author By Philip
Post date March 28, 2011

Death to the Shiny Disc http://tinyurl.com/686q9gl

Ethan Kaplan was recently heading up Warner Music’s technology efforts, particularly their digital side. His insider take is hard to set aside, despite its bottom line that the highly profitable monopolies have gone away, and that’s a good thing. Ethan puts it exceptionally well, so I’m only going to make one quote. Read the whole article if you care about the future of media.

The Business of Production The Technology of Production

Pre-NAB thoughts on the Digital Production BuZZ

Post author By Philip
Post date March 26, 2011

On Thursday night I did one of my regular sessions for the Digital Production BuZZ, where Larry wanted to me to predict what was going to be “hot” at NAB 2011. But before we got to that, he played back my predictions for NAB 2010 – the equivalent show of a year ago.

You can listen to my segment on the BuZZ with this year’s predictions and last year’s roundup here.

I thought I did OK and the live chat audience during the show gave me 100% accurate. Check it out and tell me whether you think I’ll be as good with 2011!

Business & Marketing Item of Interest

Dear Hollywood: It’s Time To Realize Artificial Scarcity is Gone

Post author By Philip
Post date March 22, 2011

Dear Hollywood: It’s Time To Realize Artificial Scarcity Is Gone… And That’s A Good Thing

The economics of physical goods followed a supply and demand curve, as you no doubt learnt in high school: the larger the supply of something, the lower the cost; conversely the tighter the supply (a.k.a. scarcity) lead to higher costs. But classic economics doesn’t deal happily with “goods” that are effectively infinite, such as digital copies of media are.

Distribution Item of Interest Media Consumption New Media

Why ‘Big Media’ Was Just a Historical Blip!

Post author By Philip
Post date March 22, 2011

Why ‘Big Media’ Was Just a Historical Blip http://tinyurl.com/68wq5o7

The question isn’t so much that Big Media is giving way to New Media, but rather that the era of Big Media – i.e. mass media, is a historical anomaly.

Before mass media all media was small, serving local audiences or (with books) very slowly distributed over wider territories. Then came an era of mass capital and limited airwaves that allowed broadcasters to build mass audiences, up to the 130 million Americans that saw “Roots” during its first broadcast.

The movie studios once owned all the production technology, talent and distribution channel – the movie theaters. That structure was forcibly broken apart, but the broadcast industry has fragmented due to the proliferation of cable channels, and now direct Internet distribution.

Business & Marketing Item of Interest Presentations

What about NAB 2011?

This will be my 14th consecutive NAB, starting in 1998 when I travelled from Australia for the conference. (And again in 1999 and 2000 before moving to the US in 2001.) Needless to say, I find it worthwhile both professionally and socially.

You absolutely need an Exhibits pass – going to NAB without one will make the trip much less worthwhile. Good news is I can offer you a code to get a free one:

Simply register atÂ http://bit.ly/NABSM08 to get the discount automatically, or atÂ http://www.nabshow/register using the code SM08

Even better, that code will also give youÂ a $100 discount off any education package, including:

SMART Pass (all-access!)
Conference Flex Pass (access to all Conferences except Post|Production World)
Post|Production World

Business & Marketing Item of Interest Random Thought

Professionalism is for Amateurs

Post author By Philip
Post date March 18, 2011
1 Comment on Professionalism is for Amateurs

Professionalism is for Amateurs http://tinyurl.com/45doktd

After making the case that “professionals” rejected the founders of Google, the founders of Apple and that amateurs created the “much bigger than the pro encyclopedia” Wikipedia, the article finishes with this clincher:

My reluctance to work with so called â€˜professionalsâ€™ goes so far that whenever someone says â€œLets do this the professional wayâ€ or â€œBut that doesnâ€™t seems professionalâ€ I canâ€™t help but instinctively move in the other direction. If it seems professional to me it sounds boring and unoriginal.

Its the awkward people, the creative thinkers and the unconventional innovators that rule the world. Not the people who act â€˜professionalâ€™ and follow the beaten path.

Re-invent the world; act unprofessionally!

But what really is a professional?

Business & Marketing Item of Interest

Want a truly horrible customer experience?

Post author By Philip
Post date March 17, 2011
4 Comments on Want a truly horrible customer experience?

Want a truly horrible customer experience? Buy from Wildform. The product is fine and does the job, but the experience of buying it, doesn’t measure up.