Author Archives: Michael Korican

About Michael Korican

A long-time media artist, Michael’s filmmaking stretches back to 1978. Michael graduated from York University film school with Special Honours, winning the Famous Players Scholarship in his final year. The Rolling Stone Book of Rock Video called Michael's first feature 'Recorded: Live!' "the first film about rock video". Michael served on the board of L.I.F.T. when he lived in Toronto during the eighties and managed the Bloor Cinema for Tom and Jerry. He has been prolific over his past eight years in Victoria, having made over thirty-five shorts, won numerous awards, produced two works for BravoFACT! and received development funding for 'Begbie’s Ghost' through the CIFVF and BC Film.

Really Big Rollable 4K OLED Screen Announced

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LG Display showed off the world’s first and largest rollable 4K OLED screen at CES this year.

As reported by David Pierce in Wired:

“The 65-inch display sits flat and sturdy on your wall, like a normal television, until you’re done with it. With one push of a button, the display descends down into its stand, rolling around a coil like wrapping paper. The screen can roll up completely for safe storage and easy transportation, or you can leave a small section of it sticking up, at which point the screen automatically shifts into a widgetized, information-providing display with weather and sports scores. LG’s device has almost nothing in common with most TVs, other than its size. Functionally, it’s more like a really big tablet.”

Fully unrolled, the aspect ration is 16:9.

But wait, there’s more! It can roll down to 21:9, eliminating the black bars above and below widescreen movies.

My take: I want one! I would hang it upside down from the ceiling, so it would mimic a cinema screen of yore.

180 Options Multiply

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Get ready for an onslaught of new immersive video cameras.

Youtube launched the VR180 format last year and parent company Google has just partnered with Lenovo to make the world’s simplest point and shoot camera, the Mirage.

180 is the shorthand for VR180, which is the moniker for 3D VR180. The two front-facing lenses approximate your eyes, creating depth.

Lenovo has published the camera’s specs but the biggest drawback I see is the lack of a view screen. It truly is a point and shoot camera, although you could use the onboard WIFI to send the picture to your smartphone for viewing.

David Pierce, writing for Wired, says:

“VR180, like most things in VR right now, is the simple-but-usable version of what will someday be much cooler. It exists for a few reasons: because 360-degree video is actually really complicated to do well, because there aren’t many great ways to watch 360 video, and because even when they do watch super-immersive footage, viewers don’t tend to look around much. With VR180, your camera can look and operate more like a regular point-and-shoot, and viewers get a similarly immersive feel without having to constantly spin around.”

Digital Trends did a review at CES 2018.

You can pre-order the Mirage Camera now from B&H.

There’s also the YI Horizon VR180 coming soon and it includes a view screen, higher resolution and HDMI out, I believe. See Think Media‘s review:

My take: I’m a big fan of 180 and can’t wait to play around with both of these cameras. (Also, I wish the ‘VR’ label would just go away since this technology is not “virtual reality” but basically “reality”. Virtual Reality to me means computer-generated environments; video games are a prime example. 180 is as close as we’re going to come to reality other than actually being there.)

SVOD leaders differentiate themselves

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Statista reports on a Hub Entertainment Research release that the leading SVOD platforms have differentiated themselves.

Netflix leads the pack in subscribers and its original shows attract the largest segment of its audience.

Amazon Video on the other hand attracts the largest segment of its audience to movies.

Hulu does neither.

Recode has compared content budgets of streamers and traditional broadcasters. Forbes has compiled viewership numbers.

My take: When you do the math, it appears that Netflix spends the least, per viewer, on original content, and that Hulu spends the most. However, it also appears that all of them are spending more than they earn from those viewers. I wonder how long that’s sustainable.

How to Choose the Best Picture Oscar

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held the 80th Oscars last Sunday.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon

Guillermo del Toro‘s “The Shape of Water” won Best Picture.

Going in, I thought “Dunkirk” and “Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri” were the front runners, with “Lady Bird” a close third. “Get Out”?

But can the winner be predicted?

Youyou Zhou, writing on Quartzy, offered The Ultimate Statistical Model for Predicting the 2018 Academy Awards Best Picture.

She rated the nine nominations on four scales:

  1. Buzz and fanfare
  2. Prior awards
  3. Money talks
  4. Critic reviews

She then asked the reader to weigh each category to produce a prediction.

Of course, we now know the actual winner, so we can reverse engineer this to gain some insight into what’s important in winning Best Picture.

I played around with the sliders and came up with:

  1. Buzz and fanfare = 15%
  2. Prior awards = 70%
  3. Money talks = 10%
  4. Critic reviews = 22%

I know it adds up to 117% — hey, I didn’t build this.

The biggest predictor was Prior Awards. In fact, “The Shape of Water” wins with all the categories at 25% and Prior Awards at 100%.

This graphic illustrates the favourites on each of the four scales.

My take: This just begs the question, how do you predict the other awards shows?

Money for Movies

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While the independent film community in Canada waits with bated breath for Telefilm to release the latest guidelines for their excellent Talent to Watch program, the NFB reminds us there are other sources of money to help you make your movie.

Eleven, to be exact:

  1. The Bell Fund
  2. Canada Council for the Arts
  3. The Canada Media Fund
  4. The Canada Media Fund English POV Program
  5. The Hot Docs CrossCurrents Doc Fund
  6. The Hot Docs Ted Rogers Fund
  7. The Quebecor Fund
  8. The Rogers Documentary Fund
  9. The Rogers Cable Network Fund
  10. The Telus Fund
  11. Crowd-funding sites such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo

Conspicuously missing from the list is BravoFACT, which the CRTC allowed Bell Media to kill last year.

My take: thank you, NFB, for helping us not fixate on Telefilm. Nevertheless, the Talent to Watch program remains the holder of the best odds on $125K — something like 1 in 6 by my math: Telefilm has announced they’ll fund 50 projects this year and each of approximately 30 recommending partners can forward two feature and one web project for consideration — that’s 50 / (33 * 3) = 50 / 99 = 50% odds at Telefilm. I suspect that each partner will not receive more than nine projects — that’s 3 / 9 = 33% odds at your local media centre. Combining the two, we get 0.5 x 0.33 = 0.165 = 16.5% which is approximately one in six. Roll the die! Your chances of funding your first feature will never be better.

Isaac Asimov hitches a ride on Elon Musk’s Roadster to Mars

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Elon Musk, Earth’s real life Tony Stark (see this infographic and this tidbit for proof,) just sent his Tesla Roadster into space aboard SpaceX‘s Falcon Heavy rocket on February 6, 2018.

See four hours of live footage of Starman and the Tesla Roadster in space.

See where Starman and Elon Musk’s Roadster are right now.

But wait, there’s more!

In addition to the “Don’t Panic!” message on the dashboard, there’s a second, hidden, message tucked away in the Roadster.

Nova Spivack of the Arch Mission Foundation, whose mission is to preserve and disseminate humanity’s knowledge across time and space for the benefit of future generations, explains:

“We are very happy to announce that our first Arch [data crystals that last billions of years] library, containing the Isaac Asimov Foundation Trilogy, was carried as payload on today’s SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch, enroute to permanent orbit around the Sun. We are eternally grateful to Elon Musk and his incredible team for advocating the Arch Mission Foundation and giving us our first ride into space.”

This is not the first time messages have been sent into space physically.

That honour goes to the Pioneer Plaques of 1972 and ’73 and the Voyager Golden Records of 1977.

Interestingly, interstellar radio messages predate that by a decade.

My take: did you know Marvel Comic’s Howard Stark, Ironman’s father, was modelled on Howard Hughes? Talk about coming full circle.

Binge-watching binge-eating in Korea

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In honour of the Olympics in PyeongChang, let’s delve into the subculture of food webcasts in South Korea, otherwise known as Mukbang.

(Click on CC for English subtitles.)

Since 2009, “Broadcast Jockeys” (or BJs) have generated millions of views of up to hour-long food cooking and/or eating videos.

Banzz, featured above, has amassed over two million subscribers and almost three-quarters of a billion views in less than five years.

Yang Soo Bin takes a different tack, editing her videos down to under five minutes.

Why do Koreans watch? Are they all on diets and tune in to eat vicariously? Are they lonely, and want company while they eat too? Is it the immediacy of real people doing something real? I don’t know.

I do know that food is a cornerstone of Korean culture and is a highly-regarded social activity there.

My take: the sheer number of subscribers and views is staggering; some BJs may actually be making more money doing this than through their regular jobs. It would be worth studying how they build their audiences.

Elton John embraces VR to announce last tour

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On the heels of news of the first big VR film sale at Sundance, Elton John unleashed a VR360 retrospective short to introduce a livestream concert announcement on January 24, 2018.

(Use your A, S, D and W keys to move in space if you don’t have a headset. I found the 1440 resolution provided the best balance between detail and smooth playback.)

His upcoming 3 year, 300 date Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour will be his last; Elton (currently age 70) intends to quit touring to spend more time with his young children and husband.

Watch the full announcement with host Anderson Cooper (interview begins at 16:00 of the clip).

According to Wired, the VR360 video took two years to produce. Amazingly, it pushes the limits for motion sickness in VR.

Here’s the Making Of, Part One and Part Two.

My take: kudos to Elton John for embracing VR (and AR the previous day.) With over 700,000 views to date, the piano man shows us how to build buzz and steal the show.

Michael Korican premieres new short film

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My new short film The Dolphins premieres at the Victoria Event Centre on Thursday, February 1, 2018.

I’ve been privileged to make over 50 short films in four decades, starting with Super-8, moving into 16mm, mini-DV and now HD.

A lot of my movies have been entries into the wonderful competitions that CineVic has held over the years: Scrapshots, Reel to Reel, One Shot Wonders, Film Slam, and Film Festivus.

My latest film, however, belongs in the “self-motivated” category. These are the films I’ve made because I needed to make them. Films like Alpbach, Thankful, Awoken, Red Tape and The Dolphins. In each case, I wanted to document a moment in time or explore a creative challenge.

The creative challenge behind The Dolphins was, “Can I make a fiction film on vacation in Mexico?” Not a travelogue, but something with a theme and no crew; just me and my DSLR.

So it’s kinda ironic that it has its premiere at a film competition. Bryan Skinner is hosting the Alan Smithee Awards and The Dolphins is entered.

Bryan is making Open for Submissions, “a comedic, feature-length mockumentary about a newly appointed film festival Executive Director who must overcome sabotage and betrayal in order to save his job and keep the screens alight.” He created the Alan Smithee Awards to source films for his feature.

My take: I hope to see you there!

Kodak looks to the future and the past

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There is good news and bad news from Kodak.

Some will remember Kodak as the leading photography film company of the last millenium, toying with bankruptcy in 2012.

The good: Kodak has fully jumped into 360 VR with the Pixpro ORBIT360 4K:

“The KODAK PIXPRO Orbit360 4K VR Camera adopts a minimalist approach to an all-in-one 360 ̊ VR camera, with two fixed focus lenses housed by a futuristic camera body. Each curved lens is designed to work in tandem, to capture full 360 ̊ 4K Video and easily upload 360 ̊ videos and photos to social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube via the camera’s Smart Device App while on the go.”

The real news from CES 2018 however is that Kodak plans two new cameras for later this year. See 2:05 in this report from Digital Trends:

The bad: Kodak has stated that the price for its upcoming Super 8 camera will be in the $2,500 to $3,000 range, which is three to five times more than originally planned.

They also released some test footage:

To my eye this is soft and jittery. I much prefer the rock-steady footage from Logmar:

My take: On one hand, I’m really looking forward to Kodak’s 360 camera that can fold out into a 180 3D mode because I feel this format has the best chance to win the immersive VR stakes. On the other hand, shame on Kodak for jacking up the price of their inferior Super 8 camera.