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.

Curating the indy film audience

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Courtney Sheehan, writing on The Independent, believes Art House Streaming Platforms [are] Uniquely Poised to Build Online Film Communities.

I’ve been thinking about curation and the mediascape. In the analogue era, the centralized control of media curated what we saw because its dissemination had gatekeepers. We couldn’t watch what wasn’t on offer. Contrast that with the digital era — we’re drowning in choice. Perhaps curation is one way to focus on quality.

Courtney’s article has three sections.

She begins with FilmStruck, a US-only collaboration between Turner Classic Movies and The Criterion Collection:

“The Criterion Channel features ongoing curated series like a short and feature pairing on Tuesdays and a Friday night double feature. Original content includes deep dives into film analysis, spotlights on art house theaters across the country, in-depth film introductions, new film commissions, and filmmaker interviews. By layering the viewing experience with additional content, the Criterion Channel hopes to invite viewers to sophisticated conversations about film.”

She then moves on to MUBI, an online streamer with a unique model: a new film is made available each day and no films stay up for more than 30 days:

“MUBI champions festival films that wouldn’t otherwise get distributed, and regularly mounts retrospectives. Another facet of MUBI’s strong brand is The Notebook, an online magazine that contextualizes its releases as well as providing general festival coverage and filmmaker interviews. Given the highly curated and diverse offerings on MUBI’s site, the company is confident in their continued ability to cut through the noise of limitless options to reach film lovers online.”

She concludes with social media by quoting Alece Oxendine, a digital distribution specialist, saying:

“‘Twitter is the rapid response, the stream of conscious thoughts about film. Facebook is more the share economy, everyone is sharing what they’re finding out. More context is provided on Facebook. Conversations are definitely happening on Reddit but it still feels new, which is crazy because as a platform it makes the most sense for community — the threads, the subthreads, you can get very, very granular where you’re just discussing film.'”

Interestingly, Courtney points out that “MUBI, Criterion, and IMDB have all shuttered their message boards and forums in recent years.” She also reports that MUBI offered 60-day free trials to the members of /r/truefilm on Reddit to bolster their audience.

My take: FilmStruck and MUBI both sound like digital versions of the repertory cinema chain I worked for in the early eighties, Festival Cinemas. They can provide needed context for viewers. Got to admit I have not explored Reddit in any depth. Interestingly, it’s purely text-based.

Copyright infringement case contends Hollywood CGI characters are illicit derivatives

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Eriq Gardner, writing in The Hollywood Reporter, reports on the curious case of the alleged copyright infringement of stolen software output of CGI characters by some of the biggest studios.

The case was brought forward by Steve Perlman and his Rearden Companies. They claim their proprietary facial movement capture software, MOVA, was stolen by two Chinese companies and then licensed to Disney, Fox and Paramount.

See their opposition to the motion to dismiss.

Rearden previously received an injunction to stop Hollywood companies from using MOVA while its ownership was being contested.

My take: This could be huge, if the judge agrees with the case. But it would boil down to money — and how much the studios would have to pay to get their characters back. Perlman must be pretty upset about the Chinese companies ripping off his software though. After all, this is the creator of WebTV, one of the first set-top boxes for TV connectivity to the Internet. He’s a serial disruptor who’s still working on improving connectivity. See this pCell interview.

Netflix to spend $8 billion on content in 2018

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Two stories about Netflix and content this week:

According to Mike Fleming Jr on Deadline Hollywood Netflix is bankrolling the Shaft reboot in exchange for international rights.

“Netflix will pay more than half the film’s high $30 million budget, in exchange for international rights and the ability to put the film on its streaming outside the U.S. two weeks after New Line releases theatrically in the United States. The film will begin production in December. New Line and Netflix were not commenting, but sources said the film will follow a traditional domestic roll out from theatrical to SVOD and DVD through the Warner Bros machine.”

Brandon Katz reports on the Observer that Netflix is planning on spending $8 billion next year.

“Netflix dropped a cool $6 billion on content in 2017 alone and is planning to shell out a whopping $8 billion next year, $1 billion more than previously planned. While the company’s long-term forecast is a bit cloudy with a growing $20 billion debt looming over its head, the short-term prognosis is bright and sunny. The streaming giant added 5.3 million new subscribers in the last quarter, crushing its own internal goal and raising its worldwide total north of 104 million.”

See the investor relations shareholder letter for details.

My take: these stories are interesting because Netflix now has more paid international subscribers than paid US subscribers and demonstrates its commitment to producing more and more original content. There’s no denying internet television is the future.

OC4: Zuck promotes first standalone VR headset

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At the recent Oculus Connect 4 Keynote presentation in San Jose, Mark Zuckerberg promised a new VR headset that straddles the space between Mobile VR that uses your smartphone and Computer VR that uses your high-end computer: the standalone Oculus Go.

Shipping in early 2018, Oculus Go will cost $199 USD and features:

  • Crystal-clear optics
  • 2560 x 1440 resolution
  • Integrated spatial audio
  • Designed with breathable fabrics and adjustable straps

Lance Ulanoff writing in Mashable has an interesting take on the price:

“Why is $199 such a good price? It’s not super cheap, but believe it or not, it appears to trigger a response in consumers. Ask them to pay $300 or more for cutting-edge technology, especially something as unproven as virtual reality that still needs more expensive hardware to work, and they balk (Oculus sold just 355,000 Oculus units in 2016). But set a sub-$200 price, even just a dollar below that threshold, and consumers are ready to take the leap. Apple wasn’t even the first to discover this magical price point. Back in 2002, the very first iRobot Roomba robotic vacuums were priced at $199.95. Even though they’ve since gotten a lot more expensive, that initial magic price point helped launch a robot vacuum industry.”

My take: I think this will be a game changer. It’s perfect for everyone who wants to get into VR but doesn’t want to buy a Samsung phone or a PC computer.

BellMedia kills BravoFACT and MuchFACT

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Ever since the CRTC ruled on May 15, 2017, that continued funding of BravoFACT and MuchFACT was no longer required, the indie film community in Canada has been wondering when BellMedia would pull the plug.

They acted in the middle of the night, on September 26 late last month, erasing their webpages, and thereby washing their hands of both production programs.

As quoted by Haydn Watters of the CBC, Randy Lennox, president of Bell Media and former head of Universal Music Canada, shrugged:

“The traditional viewing of a music video is… certainly not what it was. We don’t owe anyone an explanation for this…. I think after making hundreds, thousands of music videos and paying for them… I think we’re pretty good guys.”

OnScreen Manitoba reminds us:

“Since its foundation in 1995, BravoFACT has contributed $30 million to short films and emerging creators and the MuchFACT has contributed approximately $100 million since 1984. Earlier this fall, Bell Media’s Harold Greenberg Fund also closed its production equity investment program.”

Here is the current BravoFACT.com and what it used to look like two days after the CRTC’s decision.

Here is the current MuchFACT.ca and what it used to look like two days after the CRTC’s decision.

My take: I’m saddened by this news. I’ve been a recipient of a BravoFACT grant, so I know how important that funding can be to a short film. What maddens me about this news is the change management aspect. The Department of Canadian Heritage is in the midst of redesigning Canadian media in the digital landscape and has said the Broadcast Act will be overhauled this Fall. The CRTC is under its mandate. The disconnect comes when they claim: “More than ever before, our creators are ambassadors for our country. They are our inspiration at home, and reflect who we are to the rest of the world. Our new approach must continue to support a domestic space and market for Canadian content. Only by remaining strong in our approach at home will we succeed internationally. Only by playing to our strengths, by telling our stories, will we stand out in the global marketplace.” Proper change management would be to bring new programs on first before axing old ones. We just jumped off one raft and are hoping another one appears before we fall — I hope you all know how to swim!

Theatrical release becoming a loss-leader

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Today’s post is a mashup of two recent articles that got me thinking.

First, Poppy Reid reports in Australia’s The Industry Observer that Chance the Rapper earned $33M without selling a single record this year.

That places him fifth on Forbes‘ highest-paid hip hop artists list.

Not only is all his music free, but he has yet to sign a record label deal.

As quoted in Vanity Fair, Chance claims:

“My plan was to sign with a label and figure out my music from there. But after meeting with the three major labels, I realized my strength was being able to offer my best work to people without any limit on it…. I make money from touring and selling merchandise, and I honestly believe if you put effort into something and you execute properly, you don’t necessarily have to go through the traditional ways.”

Poppy concludes with:

“It should be noted that all the top earners used hip hop as a stepping stone toward their respective successful business ventures. In fact, Diddy [number one on the list with earnings of $130 million] hasn’t released any new music in the past year. He did however, sell a portion of his Sean Jean clothing company for US$70 million.”

Second, Tatiana Siegel reports in The Hollywood Reporter on Indie Film’s Financial Paradox: More Backers But Less Box Office.

She starts by singling out the weekend of September 22, 2017, when 15 mostly independent films competed against each other at the box office, resulting in no run-away winners.

She then contrasts that with, “Despite the box-office challenges, there is no shortage of funds being poured into indie films” and cites a $50 million epic.

She adds that $30 million in P&A is required to successfully break an indie film; $20 million is not enough.

She concludes:

“Many distributors continue to buy, not because it’s financially lucrative but because it feeds another side of their business or their parent company’s overall strategy. Releasing movies has become something of a side hustle. Many other distributors are really in the VOD or streaming business or have bigger interests that overshadow how their individual films fare at the box office.”

One moment please.

Releasing movies (let’s exclude blockbusters for the moment) is now a side show to the main event? Huh.

My take: I think this speaks to the fracturing of the mediascape. Long gone are the days of orderly rollouts across windows (when) and territories (where). Today there are so many more options available to distribute projects. It’s still the wild west but streaming (how) and mobile (where) are emerging as leaders. Add in Chance’s ‘give it away’ strategy. Combining the two begs the question, what could be the ‘real’ business of indie filmmakers? Hmm. Maybe it’s not the destination, but the journey? Can we monetize that? Ideas, folks?

Computational Video Editing may replace Assistant Editors

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Eric Escobar writes on Film Independent about his trip to Siggraph 2017 and the one technology that blew his mind: Computational Video Editing.

Three researchers from Stanford University and one from Adobe demonstrated a system that:

“automatically selects the most appropriate clip from one of the input takes, for each line of dialogue, based on a user-specified set of film-editing idioms. Our system starts by segmenting the input script into lines of dialogue and then splitting each input take into a sequence of clips time-aligned with each line. Next it labels the script and the clips with high-level structural information (e.g., emotional sentiment of dialogue, camera framing of clip, etc.). After this pre-process, our interface offers a set of basic idioms that users can combine in a variety of ways to build custom editing styles. Our system encodes each basic idiom as a Hidden Markov Model that relates editing decisions to the labels extracted in the pre-process. For short scenes (< 2 minutes, 8-16 takes, 6-27 lines of dialogue) applying the user-specified combination of idioms to the pre-processed inputs generates an edited sequence in 2-3 seconds.”

That’s right. Three seconds. For a 90 second scene. Versus 90 minutes for a human. If my math is correct, that makes this system 180,000% faster!

The idioms, from the research notes:

  • Avoid jump cuts
  • Change zoom gradually
  • Emphasize character
  • Intensify emotion
  • Mirror position
  • Peaks and valleys
  • Performance fast/slow
  • Performance loud/quiet
  • Short lines
  • Speaker visible
  • Start wide
  • Zoom consistent
  • Zoom in/out

Editors combine a number of these idioms and weight them to generate different assemblies of the rushes, automatically.

Of course, editors will then proceed to polish these rough cuts, tweaking the edits and finessing the sound.

My take: This promises to take out all the tedium in editing and let editors focus on truly being creative. Eric envisions a client-side version of this in which every viewer’s version of a film is custom-generated for them, based on their favourite editing style. That may be going a little too far but what I find fascinating about this system is that it starts with the script, once again highlighting how crucial it is.

Netflix just invited itself to your child’s next birthday party!

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Streaming juggernaut Netflix wants to sing your child Happy Birthday.

From their September 14, 2017, media release:

“With this new hack, parents can simply press play and kids’ favorite characters will sing them a special birthday greeting – made just for them (or so they’ll think).”

Some of the Birthdays On-Demand animated characters:

  • All Hail King Julien
  • Barbie
  • Beat Bugs
  • Dinotrux
  • Las Leyendas
  • LEGO Friends
  • LEGO Ninjago
  • Luna Petunia
  • My Little Pony
  • Pokemon
  • Project Mc2
  • Skylanders Academy
  • Trollhunters
  • Word Party

Just search for ‘birthday songs’ to find all.

(Netflix also did something similar for New Year’s Eve last year.)

My take: this is brilliant! Netflix has combined a targeted audience (children) with an annual event (birthdays) and created media that has huge long-tail appeal. This could only be better with some customization. And more characters. I’m thinking on the adult side, where accounts (in our home) are named. How difficult would it be to have Walter White or Frank Underwood spell out (or even say) my name? (Birthday is coming up soon! Hint, hint.)

OPA chips may one day replace optical lenses

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Caltech researchers have created an optical phased array chip that can capture images.

The technological breakthrough has the potential to revolutionize photography.

Ali Hajimiri, Bren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech, claims:

We’ve created a single thin layer of integrated silicon photonics that emulates the lens and sensor of a digital camera, reducing the thickness and cost of digital cameras. It can mimic a regular lens, but can switch from a fish-eye to a telephoto lens instantaneously — with just a simple adjustment in the way the array receives light.

He continues:

“The ability to control all the optical properties of a camera electronically using a paper-thin layer of low-cost silicon photonics without any mechanical movement, lenses, or mirrors, opens a new world of imagers that could look like wallpaper, blinds, or even wearable fabric.”

Read the PDF.

My take: This is the perhaps unseen conclusion of digitization. First film. Soon lenses. Both usurped by ones and zeroes. I wonder what the future of visual storytelling will look like when almost anything flat — walls, windows, ceilings — can become image capturing tools.

“TV” shows coming to social media platforms

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Harold Stark, writing on Forbes, believes that Snapchat and Facebook are Going to Change Television Forever.

He’s wondering about the data social networks gather on their users and how it could inform media programming:

“Social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Vimeo already invest billions of dollars each year in order to gather data on their users. Just imagine what would happen if all these social media organizations were to implement their stacks of user-sensitive data to create the perfect television shows that users loved?”

And it’s already happening.

Facebook has begun Watch for shows “made up of episodes — live or recorded — [that] follow a theme or storyline.” They envision that:

“Over time, creators will be able to monetize their shows through Ad Breaks. We’ve been testing Ad Breaks over the past few months, and we will be slowly opening up availability to more creators to ensure we’re providing a good experience for the community. Creators can also create sponsored shows using our branded content tag.”

Sounds like TV and TV commercials, no?

In the wings are Instagram, Snap and Vimeo. Plus, Apple.

My take: Television, be scared, be very scared.