Category Archives: The Mediascape

Projection error traumatizes children

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As reported by David Allan-Petale in The Sydney Morning Herald, a trailer for a horror film was shown to a cinema full of families and their children waiting to see Peter Rabbit.

An eyewitness said:

“Very quickly you could tell this was not a kid’s film. Parents were yelling at the projectionist to stop, covering their kids’ eyes and ears. It was dreadful. A few went out to get a staff member but she was overwhelmed and didn’t really know what to do. Some parents fled the cinema with their kids in tow. Eventually a senior staff member came in with a walkie talkie and he shut the screen off. To his credit he apologized and offered us complimentary movie passes to make up for it.”

Watch the trailer:

My take: back in the day, when I was a repertory cinema manager I used to order trailers for upcoming films and play them sight unseen before the nightly films. However, I think all the trailers were made for general audiences. Of course, who can forget The Tale of Peter Rabbit has Mr. McGregor who chases the rabbits with murderous intent, so maybe the horror film trailer is not so far off the mark after all.

CanadaScreens.ca gets CAVCO nod

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Once upon a time if you were making films in Canada, you needed to get a theatrical release or a television deal to qualify for production tax credits, as administered by the Canadian Audio Visual Certification Office, or CAVCO.

No more.

Online distribution now qualifies and the newest approved service is CanadaScreens, owned and operated by the First Weekend Club.

Posting your film on CanadaScreens.ca will now trigger tax credits, providing eligible productions with fully refundable tax credits on their qualified labour spend.

First Weekend Club’s executive director, Anita Adams, says:

“This is exciting news for the organization as it puts us in a position to be of much greater service to the Canadian film community, providing them not only with a platform for their Canadian content, but a platform that will enable them to recoup costs through the tax credit program.”

In an email to me she goes on:

“We work directly with whoever holds the digital rights to the content — so we work both with filmmakers and distributors equally. More filmmakers are now choosing to go down the self-distribution route and are reaching out to us directly. In some cases, we may help release these films theatrically by offering promotional services, and then launch their films on our VOD platform. This is a model we quite like actually.”

Please read the CAVCO regulations carefully; I’m not clear if they require a Canadian distributor deal, or if self-distribution qualifies. See Section 30 above.

Here’s the full list of acceptable online services.

My take: this is great news for filmmakers in Canada. Keep up the great work, First Weekend Club!

del Toro and Besson make deals

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Two interesting developments in the realm of auteur filmmaking to report today.

Firstly, Adam Epstein writes on Quartzy that Guillermo del Toro is “getting his own film label at Fox Searchlight, the studio where he directed this year’s best picture winner, The Shape of Water.”

As quoted by The Hollywood Reporter, del Toro says:

“For the longest time, I’ve hoped to find an environment in which I can distribute, nurture and produce new voices in smart, inventive genre films and channel my own. In Fox Searchlight, I’ve found a real home for live action production — a partnership based on hard work, understanding of each other and, above all, faith.”

Secondly, Charles Barfield writes on The Playlist that Luc Besson‘s company is in talks to be bought:

“According to French media outlet Capital.fr , EuropaCorp is in advanced talks to be purchased by none other than Netflix. There’s no terms to the agreement, and honestly, the report is very heavily leaning on unnamed sources, but the structure of the deal is clear. EuropaCorp, founded in 2000 by filmmaker Luc Besson and Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, would be purchased by Netflix, with Besson to stay on to oversee the creative side of the company. The goal is to have the deal worked out by the summer.”

My take: once upon a time, this might be considered selling out. Now it’s monetizing your celebrity in exchange for a promise to keep moving in the same direction. It shows just how much money mini-majors and Netflix have to invest in building up their artistic credibility and aligning with like-minded creatives. That’s the short play — the long play is betting on which streaming service will rule them all.

Industry Veteran Brings Blockchain to Hollywood

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Dawn C. Chmielewski, writing on Deadline Hollywood, reports that a Blockchain Network is coming to Hollywood.

“Veteran entertainment industry marketer Amorette Jones joined with technologist Matej Boda to build a blockchain-based platform for the film industry. Their new venture, Treeti, would seek to harness the disruptive power of blockchain to create a new way for filmmakers to distribute and monetize their creative projects.”

Amorette Jones has a long history in Hollywood and can claim to have made the first big splash online with marketing for The Blair Witch Project.

Treeti.com is short on details right now. Their promise to creators is:

“Our platform is designed to make it easier to distribute, market, and monetize your content with an engaged global audience. Sophisticated data connects you to fans who are most eager to discover and promote your content.”

My take: I so want this to take off. There is tons of potential in the blockchain. Unfortunately crypto-currencies are giving it a bad name right now.

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?

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.

Netflix in 2018

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As we move into 2018, a quick recap on the strength of Netflix’s streaming domination:

  • Netflix subscribers around the world watched more than one billion hours per week
  • The average subscriber watched approximately 60 movies in 2017

As reported widely, Neflix intends to spend upwards of $8 billion on new content in 2018. The New York Times lists some of the new films coming this spring:

  • “The Polka King” starring Jack Black
  • “Step Sisters”
  • “A Futile and Stupid Gesture” starring Will Forte
  • “When We First Met”
  • A revival of the “Benji” franchise
  • “Roxanne Roxanne”
  • “Come Sunday” starring Chiwetel Ejiofor

Even more new TV series are coming this year.

Nevertheless, there’s backlash…

Ben Kuchera writing on Polygon complains that:

“Netflix believes that its business begins and ends in your living room, which means any movie it buys will lose its shot at a theatrical release.”

He goes on to quote Noah Baumbach talking about his Netflix experience with “The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)“:

“To be clear, I didn’t make the movie with Netflix. I made the movie independently, as I’ve made all my movies. I wasn’t even thinking of an alternative — I was thinking this would be shown in theaters, as all my movies are. Netflix acquired it from my producer in post and they have their way that’s important to them…. But I think it’s a singular experience, seeing a movie in the theater. I think audiences should be given the opportunity to see things for the first time that way.”

Netflix is even using their model for blockbusters. The $90 million Bright got savaged by the critics but that doesn’t seem to have scared away viewers.

My take: Although not quoted above, Baumbach also went on to say, “We all end up there anyway — all movies are going to end up on these servers, and that’s great.” The reality is that theatrical releases are very expensive. And the cost per viewer, versus streaming, is astronomical. My advice: add a clause to your contract that lets you four-wall a cinema and hold exclusive screenings for your best supporters. An audience of three hundred or so viewers can’t bother Netflix too much, can it?