Category Archives: Coming Soon

Bot storytellers coming soon.

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Benjamin Hoguet on CMF Trends wonders ‘How can chatbots be used to tell stories?‘

Chatbots, or bots, give the impression of a personalized online experience. Interacting with a bot replicates a real world one-on-one exchange, depending on the quality of the AI programming. Just ask Siri, the most famous bot, “How many Apple Store geniuses does it take to screw in a lightbulb?’ or ‘Is Santa real?’ or ‘Tell me a story.”

According to Hoguet:

“It’s the democratization of chatbots that is revolutionary because today anyone can create his or her own chatbot and upload it to a Facebook page, for example.”

He recommends two tools, ChatFuel or PullString.

“‘Narrative chatbots’ are only just beginning to appear. A lot of them set themselves apart only by their capacity to show us what not to do, but that’s the advantage of pioneering projects: to help develop codes and a grammar for those who will follow in their footsteps. Conversing with fictional characters is today’s predominant use of narrative bots.”

Hoguet envisions “the eventual arrival of bot stores. Just like app stores, they will definitely contribute to elevating chatbots to the level of full-fledged distribution platforms.”

My take: this is worth noticing because the top four messaging apps (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and Viber) have surpassed the top four social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram) in monthly users, according to Business Insider UK. For instance, imagine if Tom Thomson’s tweets were a (messenger) dialogue rather than a (Twitter) broadcast.

Netflix raises $1 Billion for new content

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Further to my post last week, Variety reports that Netflix is raising one billion dollars to finance its new content.

“Netflix said it is raising $1 billion through a new debt offering, bringing its long-term debt load to more than $3 billion. The offering was upsized from an aggregate principal amount of $800 million originally announced Monday morning.”

It’s a good thing subscribers seem to prefer its original content. AllFlicks claims:

“Netflix user ratings show that Netflix’s subscriber base prefers Netflix’s original content to its syndicated content. Netflix originals sport an average rating of 3.85 stars out of five; all other content averages 3.47 stars. That means that user ratings for Netflix originals are 11% higher, on average, than user ratings for syndicated content. Netflix does best in the documentaries category, where users rate non-original content, on average, at 3.54. Netflix’s documentaries average 4.07 stars, a pretty impressive showing. Netflix’s TV shows do the worst, but still edge their other TV show content by 5.7%.”

Polygon reports that CEO Ted Sarandos says:

“The company wants to move to having about 50 percent of its catalog being original content… but according to recent reports, Netflix’s library has actually shrunk by 50 percent in the past four years.”

Gizmodo corroborates:

“Netflix’s content library isn’t just getting smaller, it’s also increasingly losing its best movies. The Streaming Observer did some analysis, and found that only 31 movies from the IMDb Top 250 are currently available on Netflix…. Even worse than the paltry selection of movies, it’s noteworthy that this figure is actually down 12 percent from 2014, when a Reddit user documented the 49 available films from the IMDb Top 250 then available on Netflix.”

My take: it seems somewhat disingenuous of Netflix to say its content is 50% original if it’s also reducing the number of films on the service. The analogy is crude, but it’s the difference between peeing in the kiddie pool and peeing in the big pool; the concentration of the same amount of pee is higher in the smaller pool.

Netflix continues to expand

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Netflix continues its expansive plans.

BuzzFeed reports the SVOD (subscription video-on-demand) giant will spend $6 billion on content this year, in the process creating 1,000 hours of original shows.

Meanwhile Esquire reports that the streaming service has made a deal with iPic Cinemas of New York and Los Angeles to screen 10 of their original motion pictures in their theatres, on the same day the flicks debut online. Speculation is that Netflix wants to take home an Oscar, to join their many Emmy award wins, because to be eligible a film must have played at least one week in both cities.

Meanwhile, some filmmakers are turning their backs on Hollywood and making multiple-picture deals with Netflix instead. For instance, IndieWire reports that Mark Duplass‘s “latest film, the romantic drama ‘Blue Jay,’ was financed by Netflix without the company even seeing a script. Instead, Duplass wrote a 10-page outline that allowed for significant improvisation during shooting.”

My take: I wonder how big Netflix needs to get before U.S. antitrust concerns arise. It was less than 70 years ago when the Paramount Decision decreed that vertically-integrated movie studios needed to divest their theatres, as this had created an oligopoly.

Demand.film launches cinema-on-demand service

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The cinema-on-demand space is about to expand.

Joining Tugg and Gathr is new-comer Demand.film.

According to Forbes:

“The three Australian entrepreneurs who created the platform say their dual aims are to enable filmmakers from around the world to reach audiences who would not otherwise get the chance to see their works, and to supplement traditional theatrical distribution.”

They are also disrupting film exhibition accounting and reporting:

“Demand.film is the first crowdfunding cinema service to use blockchain technology to create databases which record high-level, scalable sales information that can’t be changed. ‘The advantages that gives us are transparency and trust with producers, distributors and exhibitors, which will be transformational in the accounting side of the business,’ says David Doepel, the firm’s managing director.”

According to Startup Daily:

“The platform uses blockchain technology to enable independent filmmakers to negotiate a multi-country release in one single deal. While the Demand.film team are being tight lipped on the features of the new platform, Doepel said that the upgraded functionality has been specifically designed with audiences and cinema in mind. Vice president of operations and development for Demand.film Barbara Connell further explained, ‘We’re incorporating some fantastic fintech, which includes Blockchain technology. This will be complemented by new dashboards that can be married to social media campaigns and other social media activity. While this all seems very complicated, the platform has been designed to be very easy to use and to be nimble.'”

Demand.film also operates in New Zealand and the United Kingdom and plans to expand to other countries and North America in 2017.

My take: come to Canada, please! There is so much under-utilized capacity in movie theatres, particularly outside of busy Friday and Saturday nights. How many times have you gone to a matinee only to find merely a dozen or so  fellow patrons sitting in the dark? I would definitely become an impresario once again because the cinema-on-demand model assures a win-win-win-win screening for the filmmaker, the audience, the theatre and the organizer.

Smart contracts come to film financing

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I’ve written about the blockchain and smart contracts before. Now we have a breakthrough: the first film using both!

The film is called The Pitts Circus and promises to be a “feature length-horror-comedy movie incorporating the skills, comic talent and uniqueness of a real Australia circus family”.

Investors who buy some of the 666 shares with cash or Ethereum are guaranteed to share in 50% of the profits until 2036. Single shares are $150 USD or 10 Ether.

Caveat emptor:

‘As always with indie movies, there is only a small chance for a huge success — but in case it does take off, it is a journey to the moon.”

Use a wallet you know you’ll control until then because the smart contract will distribute the proceeds, if any, to that account.

My take: I know this sounds a bit weird, but it represents a radically different way to raise financing and settle contracts by using crypto-currency and smart contracts, both made possible by the blockchain. This illustrates the power of the blockchain — it does away with the friction of intermediaries, in this case bankers, advisers, lawyers and accountants. (For kicks, work out how much the 2007 million dollar coin is worth today!)

The quickest way to identify your film audience

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I see indie filmmakers make their movies and then begin figuring out how to monetize them, i.e. finding a paying audience. (Mea culpa; that’s what we did with Recorded: Live!)

Or, better, they put together a project and at the planning stage, devise a marketing strategy. Part of this will be determining their ideal audience. Too many say ‘Everyone’ will want to see their movie. (Yeah, I’ve thought this too.)

Now, an indie filmmaker half-way around the world enlightens me.

Rihaan Patel slashes the ’10 steps to your audience’, etc., to one simple principle. Writing in a learned language, he offers in
This one is for Innocent Independent Filmmaker who make awesome film but don’t know what happens next!:

“But how to find your potential audience? Just look at the protagonist of your film. And Your protagonist is personification of your audience.”

Simple! He continues:

“Find people who shares quality of your protagonist and share your marketing message. It will connect them.”

Of course! This is a solid strategy that should allow any film to earn its production budget. Ron Mann did this with the DVD Tales of the Rat Fink, which he targeted to hot-rodders. All word of mouth, media coverage and critical reviews just expand the audience beyond the core, and generate your profit.

My take: this is brilliant! ‘Your protagonist is the personification of your audience’ is a great place to start when defining your audience. Literally, then figuratively, and finally metaphorically. (On a recent project, we came close to this, using setting to determine that our audience was small-town Canada — but perhaps we needed to focus in on our heroine and the women and people she represented.) When the ‘Patel Postulate’ really becomes powerful is when you flip it on its head, writing your movie using its audience to personify the protagonist. For instance, it makes no sense for the homeless guy to be the protagonist in my rom-com; homeless guys don’t buy many movie tickets. Rather, a better protagonist would be the earnest woman who befriends him.

 

CanCon-sultations

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The Department of Canadian Heritage has launched consultations on how to strengthen the creation, discovery and export of Canadian content in a digital world.

Minister Mélanie Joly proclaims:

“As a government, we are proud to support Canadian culture. But we want to do it well. We’re launching a national dialogue on Canadian content; one that will help us adapt our cultural policies to today’s digital realities. Tell us what’s important to you. Share your ideas to help Canada thrive in a digital world. And to allow people across the country and around the world to keep discovering what makes our culture and creators so great.”

At stake is billions dollars that Heritage Canada uses to fund culture in Canada. Its portfolio includes things like the CBC, the NFB, Telefilm Canada, the Canada Council and the CRTC, among many others.

The consultations stem from an April announcement when Joly told The Globe and Mail: “Everything is on the table.”

There are many ways to take part:

  1. You can post your idea.
  2. You can post your public event.
  3. You can upload a submission.
  4. You can host your own event.

See the results of the pre-consultations and the expert advisory group.

My take: kudos to Minister Joly for showing some leadership on media, arts and culture in a digital age. Discoverability and monetization are the two biggest issues facing all artists, Canadian or otherwise, on the web. Time will tell if this consultation results in mere ripples in the pond or a massive tidal wave of change. (I used to be a part-owner of Tidal Wave Productions.) My advice: get involved if you want to see the status quo challenged!

Locarno Film Festival finds future in small and local

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Variety reports on two interesting independent film developments: community and content from Step-In at the Locarno Film Festival.

While lamenting the state of indie film today on one hand, some art houses claim to be  doing great business on the other.

“‘We’re making a profit,’ said Jon Barrenechea, at the U.K.’s Picturehouse Cinemas, which aim to become hubs of community activity all day long and run their own cafes and bars. ‘One thing programmers don’t like to hear is that it isn’t about films but venues,’ he insisted. Last year at Step-In, Barrenechea cited the case of a 243-seat three-screen in Dulwich, a more affluent part of south London, which was doing ‘incredible business,’ with 90% of audiences living within 10 minutes’ walk of the cinema.”

On the content side, Telefilm Canada crowed about its Micro-Budget Production Program.

“Targeting first-time directors, its Talent Fund – a private donation fund whose partners include Bell Media, Corus Ent and Technicolor – finances movies or TV/web narrative content capped at $250,000 per budget and specifically created for digital distribution. 15% or more of Telefilm financing contribution must be dedicated to promotion and distribution. A pioneering experiment, money is raised not by Telefilm but influential local equity investors backing the Fund, and decision-making on projects is left with film schools or fund partners.”

Eurimages’ Roberto Olla posits that the creative freedom this affords allows filmmakers to try new things and expand the definition of cinema.

My take: Interesting to me that we’re back at the local cinema watching engaging small-scale movies.

VR stats from England

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Charlotte Rogers of Marketing Week in the UK has reported a raft of VR statistics that are very interesting.

Very nice graphs show:

  • Consumer Sentiments on Virtual Reality
  • What Experiences Would You Like to Have When Using Virtual Reality?
  • What Sorts of Places Would You Like to Get Virtuality Reality Content Related to Your Interests From?

In terms of winning content, the survey points to new, unique experiences as being the most diserable:

“The ability to travel to different cities proves the most popular VR application at 56%, followed by being in the crowd at a concert (52%) and fantasy scenarios, such as flying or walking on water (45%).”

See the original Ipsos MORI media release and raw data.

My take: I just don’t know. Is VR/360 a technology in search of it’s killer app? Or — ? I can’t help but remember the trailer for The Matrix — I think we’ve seen this movie before.

A film festival for every film

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With something like over 3,000 active film festivals around the world, there’s a film festival for every type of film.

And now, there’s even one dedicated to drone filming: FRiFF.

Filmmakers looking for validation from juries can search for suitable festivals on Withoutabox or FilmFreeway.

Just be sure festival exposure is a component of your overall distribution and marketing strategy.

My take: that’s it — I’m going to start my own film festival. Coming to cyberspace soon! Even if Robert Redford once said there are too many film festivals….