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.
How To Market Your Film: Getting Results on YouTube http://bit.ly/9Hm2sM Who doesn’t want that?
Democratized production is great, but we need to democratize distribution. Once upon a time we (or the studio) spent money – lots of it – to promoting a film or other independent project. Now we trade off time and effort to do the promotion and keep control.
Part of that process will involve putting the trailer up on YouTube. The author argues that there’s a right way, and wrong way, to go about it.
Part two of the series talks about How to get more views on YouTube.
Ohh, interesting. Apple’s Video Decode Acceleration Framework Reference http://bit.ly/bDnW36 So Adobe can accelerate Flash on OS X now?
These are newly published for Mac OS X 10.6.3 and later with Mac models equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M, but mark a big step forward in third parties (like Adobe) being able to hook into the same frameworks Apple hooks into.
These frameworks seem to be mostly focussed on hardware decode of H.264, but no doubt there’s more in there than my cursory read suggests.
Brand and build your production or post production business. http://bit.ly/bJlTL7 Free seminar from me on May 4.
Your brand defines you post production business and the stories you tell define your brand. This webinar will help you understand how to establish and create you brand by better knowing what business you are in, because it’s probably not the one you think it is. Having established the brand we’ll learn how to build an internet presence by understanding how marketing, PR and social conversations have changed the business promotion landscape. The webinar will conclude with the top tips on maximizing your business’ visibility on the Internet.
Did I mention free? How can you lose.
Some background in Adobe v Apple re Flash http://bit.ly/dygV0N It’s still complicated but apparently Adobe haven’t been as proactive in the mobile space as they could have. Dan Rayburn is editor of Streaming Media magazine and doesn’t appear to have bias in this discussion.
I have to say though, that my experience of Adobe engineers and product managers has always been of people enthusiastic about their product(s) and their users.
Can Inidie Films make money on YouTube? http://bit.ly/cvtnHb Mostly not. Much on Demand Media again. (Pay attention to Demand Media!)
A few “indies” have made decent money from YouTube but the general consensus is:
These are happy accidents, but should indie filmmakers be using YouTube as a component of their finance plan?
No, they should not.
And right at the end of the article:
Instead of layering the “old school†indie on top of a new platform, the smart approach is to follow Demands’ lead and recognize this is a new medium, with different requirements; it’s actually more a search engine than a content delivery system or distributor.
While there’s a lot I find disturbing about Demand Media’s model – mostly that it’s scraping by with the barest of production values – it is a new business model and one that I think has the best chance of showing us how to reduce the cost of quality production down, so it can survive in a world of niche programming, which is the inevitable direction we’re heading.
Wired’s article on Demand Media from last year: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_demandmedia/
and from yesterday: Is Demand Media’s CEO Going Hollywood? New Board Member at Demand Peter Guber is the former head of Polygram and former chairman of Sony Pictures. What does he say about Demand?
As someone who’s always understood the power of the narrative for attracting audiences, I believe Demand Media has discovered a new and largely untapped story telling platform on the web. As part of its Board, I look forward to helping unlock this value and drive innovation online, using the insight and experience I bring from the entertainment industry.