Category Archives: The Mediascape

Sony tests cameraless virtual production

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Jourdan Aldredge notes on No Film School of Sony Testing Real-Time Cameraless Production for New Ghostbuster Movie.

He writes:

“Sony Pictures Technologies has unveiled its latest developments in real-time game engine technology with this new proof-of-concept project…. Its “cameraless” virtual production style… intends to allow developers to use this real-time game engine to produce a scene live on a motion capture set.”

Jason Reitman, who wrote and directed the two-minute scene in one day, says:

“I love filmmaking in real places with real actors. So for me, this is not a substitute. If I were to make Juno again today, I would make Juno exactly the same way. What I see here, what thrills me, is if I wanted to make a movie like Juno that took place in ancient Rome, I wouldn’t be able to do that because it would cost $200 million to make Juno. And that’s not cost effective. There’s no studio who would sign up for that. You can make Ghostbusters for a lot of money, but you can’t make an independent film in an unexpected location. You can’t make an independent film underwater, on the moon or, you know, a thousand years ago or into the future, and what thrills me about it is the possibility of independent filmmakers who want to tell their kind of stories, but in environments that they don’t have access to with characters that they don’t have access to, and the possibility of getting a whole new wave of stories that you could read in a book, but you would never actually get in a film.”

My take: While I agree with Jason Reitman that this technology is promising, I think their finished scene is underwhelming. It’s just not believable. For instance, the folks on the sidewalks are obviously from a video game. The traffic is not real world either. And the actor is not human; he’s a marshmallow! However, this might be where superhero comic book movies are going: totally computer-generated, with the faces of the stars composited onto the quasi-lifelike animation. (My nightmare situation: those faces and voices are AI generated from scans and recordings!)

The ticktokification of media and how to stop doomscrolling

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Enrico Tartarotti of @enricotartarotti on Youtube asks the question: Short Form Content Is BROKEN. Can We Fix It?

Enrico believes, in his own words:

“TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels have taken over the internet and completely changed how we view content by spreading short form content and videos everywhere. But… they are already failing. Meanwhile, long form content is having a renaissance. There is a way to save our brains from frying off retention hacks and that is… joining forces.”

He presents his case in five chapters.

  • Part 1: Why everything became a copy of TikTok
  • Part 2: Attention spans and retention black holes
  • Part 3: The Problem — falling apart
  • Part 4: The other side
  • Part 5: The Solution — the missing link

His solution? Enrico proposes changes that will harness society’s doomscrolling dopamine addiction.

  1. Link long and short content in a meaningful way, so that shorts lead to more in-depth media
  2. Change what the algorithm optimizes for, to packages of both short and corresponding longer media
  3. Allow creators to build real businesses, so they can live meaningful lives and still contribute to society.

Well worth 15 minutes!

My take: Fascinating! I will admit to wasting hours of time scrolling through short form content and I detest the “endless scroll” design of modern media apps. I like that Enrico links the rise in short form content with the rise in the sheer number of videos, suggesting that this is merely a solution to discoverability.

Barbenheimer continues to wow in weekend 2!

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July 21, 2023, saw the release of both Greta Gerwig‘s Barbie and Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer, and rather than cannibalize each other’s audience, this synergistic counter-programming resulted in the fourth biggest combined weekend box office of all time.

But the numbers don’t lie. Barbie is more popular than Oppenheimer, earning twice as much. Their combined total is well over $1B to date.

My take: It appears plastic out-punches plutonium.

Sound of Freedom motivates its audience to support justice by watching

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William Hughes asks on The A.V Club: How the hell did Sound Of Freedom make $100 million?

He begins:

“It’s not every day that a $15 million movie, released by an independent producer, and paid for at least in part through crowdfunding, can climb to the top of the box office charts. And yet, that’s exactly the fate that’s greeted Angel Studios’ Sound Of Freedom, which has just passed the $100 million mark after just three weeks in theaters, making it the most successful independent film of 2023 by a country mile.”

Sound of Freedom stars Jim Caviezel and was produced by Angel Studios.

The Numbers charts Sound of Freedom in second place at the US box office for the week starting July 14, 2023.

Brian Welk on IndieWire explains the marketing and financing of the film.

My take: you would think a movie about child trafficking would be a tough sell. Faith-based Angel Studios created a community of motivated producers who greenlit this project. It then developed a Pay It Forward scheme allowing people to buy free tickets for others. Both raised money and created invested promoters. The power of community!

Hollywood Writers and Actors on strike together for first time in 63 years

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Katie Kilkenny and Winston Cho report in The Hollywood Reporter that Actors and Writers Make History With Bid to Reshape Industry in Hollywood’s High-Stakes Strike.

They lead with:

“On July 13, SAG-AFTRA, led by president Fran Drescher, called the union’s first strike against film and television companies in 43 years. Combined with Hollywood writers ongoing strike, the work stoppage — applying to 160,000 members, from actors to singers to dancers — marks the first simultaneous strike by the two unions since 1960, in a sign of an industry in tumult.”

In a redefined industry that now embraces streaming, the issues are pay, residuals, benefits and — AI.

“During the 2023 round of negotiations, the union has been seeking to codify consent and compensation terms for performers when their work is ingested into AI technology, and create guardrails around potential uses. The AMPTP said it offered a ‘groundbreaking AI proposal which protects performers’ digital likenesses, including a requirement for performer’s consent for the creation and use of digital replicas or for digital alterations of a performance.’ Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator and national executive director, on July 13 denounced the proposal for only paying background performers for one day of work in exchange for the rights to their digital likeness ‘for the rest of eternity with no compensation.’ He added, ‘If you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again.'”

USC history professor Steve Ross, who studies entertainment labour, says this time there’s an “existential threat to writers and potentially to actors. This is no longer just about improving your wages and your benefits. This is about keeping your job in the future.”

My take: Workers of the world, unite!

How to Make a Better Movie Trailer

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Nerdstalgic asks, “What Killed the Movie Trailer?”

They say:

“Movie Trailers may have started out as a tool to sell films, but over time they have evolved into their own spectacle. Before a film is released there are a multitude of Theatrical Trailers, TV Spots, Web Shorts, and even Trailers before the Trailer starts. How did Hollywood turn from a simple marketing tool, to a an ever expansive industry of movie trailers that mostly give away the entire plot of the film? How did Hollywood crush the Movie Trailer?”

Vanity Fair provides more background on How Movie Trailers are Created:

“Movie marketing expert and creative director Jessica Fox takes us through the steps of creating a successful movie trailer. From the collaborative process that takes place between filmmakers, studios and creative agencies to audience testing, she breaks down how each play a role in deciding how much is shown, what stories are told, and why trailers tease missing scenes from the film’s final cut.”

My take: I think the job of trailers is much harder today than in the past, given the fractured entertainment environment and peoples’ frenzied attention spans. And yet the goal remains the same: get folks to watch the whole movie. But I think the “Exquisite Corpse” might-as-well-be-a-random-sampling-of-the-movie trailer editing method is not working well. (Imagine if they did that with books — a word salad of the paragraphs from five pages of a four hundred page novel.) I much prefer the “In a world where…” trailer structure that is once removed from the film but still sets up the premise and asks the audience a question, one that they can only answer if they watch the movie. Oh, and my pet peeve? I feel cheated if the music in the trailer is not in the movie.

Academy makes it harder for indies to qualify for Best Picture in 2024

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Josh Rottenberg and Glenn Whipp report in The Los Angeles Times that The Oscars are changing the rules for best picture.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the news on Wednesday, June 21, 2023:

“The Academy’s Board of Governors has approved new requirements to broaden the public theatrical exhibition criteria for Oscars® eligibility in the Best Picture category starting with the 97th Academy Awards®, for films released in 2024.
Upon completion of an initial qualifying run, currently defined as a one-week theatrical release in one of the six U.S. qualifying cities, a film must meet the following additional theatrical standards for Best Picture eligibility:

  • Expanded theatrical run of seven days, consecutive or non-consecutive, in 10 of the top 50 U.S. markets, no later than 45 days after the initial release in 2024.
  • For late-in-the-year films with expansions after January 10, 2025, distributors must submit release plans to the Academy for verification.
  • Release plans for late-in-the-year films must include a planned expanded theatrical run, as described above, to be completed no later than January 24, 2025.
  • Non-U.S. territory releases can count towards two of the 10 markets.
  • Qualifying non-U.S. markets include the top 15 international theatrical markets plus the home territory for the film.”

My take: These new rules begin in 2024, for Best Picture contenders in the 2025 awards. It’s interesting to compare the number of theatres for winners Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Whale and Nomadland.

The Elevation Pictures Playbook

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Etan Vlessing reports in The Hollywood Reporter on Elevation Pictures’ 10-Year Journey to Canadian Indie Powerhouse.

He notes:

“As an indie distributor, Elevation competes in the shadow of Hollywood studios dominating the local multiplex with star-driven tentpoles by embracing indie filmmakers in Canada and international art house titles.”

“Many of Elevation’s potentially zeitgeist-capturing releases come via output deals with American partners, including Black Bear, Neon and A24, with whom Elevation is a preferred partner north of the border.”

“In all, Elevation releases about 35 indie titles a year, with a third of those locally produced or acquired at festivals on completion that hopefully will become box office winners.”

“Key to Elevation’s proven playbook is that focus on financing homegrown directors and their films, with support from local funding agencies like Telefilm Canada to share the risks and rewards on what can be an uphill battle to launch and monetize Canadian indies.”

My take: I notice on Panoscope that Elevation is almost always the leading Canadian distributor each week.

 

Save the Pic-a-Flic Video Collection!

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SIGN THE PETITION NOW!

Roxanne Egan-Elliott reports in the Times Colonist that Victoria’s Pic-A-Flic Video is closing after 40 years:

“Pic-A-Flic Video, one of the last places in Greater Victoria to rent a movie or TV series, plans to close its doors in September after four decades. Opened in 1983, Pic-A-Flic has more than 25,000 titles, from silent movies to new releases, most of which are not available on streaming services or anywhere else, owner Kent Bendall said.”

What to do with all those DVDs?

A change.org petition says: “We cannot allow this collection to be scattered to the winds without having a serious conversation about how it could be permanently housed by UVic and the Greater Victoria Public Library.”

My take: I have a modest proposal! How about the RBCM buy the collection AND hire Kent Bendall to continue operating a video store from Old Town or some other suitable space?

Is Ben Affleck a socialist?

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Amos Barshad, writing for WIRED, reports Ben Affleck Has a Plan for a Fairer Streaming World. (Spoilers in trailer below.)

The article is fascinating because it briefly explores Capitalism, Socialism, and fair pay in an economic environment where streaming has vastly reduced the likelihood of residuals.

Of course, Affleck‘s new streaming project, Air, concludes with Michael Jordan becoming the richest athlete ever, due to profit participation. Spoiler: Jordan gets 5% of every pair of Air Jordans sold anywhere in the world. To date, this has amounted to over $1.3 billion.

He quotes Affleck:

“Air, in many ways, is critiquing that aspect of capitalism which historically has been exploitative or patently unfair because it’s rooted in a notion that says, well, if you invest the capital, you get the reward. That needs to change. That’s what I’m trying to accomplish, and that’s what the WGA is trying to accomplish in a much bigger way. If we are going to practice capitalism, which has led to real iniquities, at the very least we ought to recognize the human beings who actually do the work and create a better world. They should be rewarded at least as well as the investors.”

I know of at least three ways cast and crew can share in potential profits:

  1. Shares: own a slice of the production company that owns the project (and all the related corporate drama that might arise)
  2. Deferrals: accept less (or volunteer your efforts) in exchange for a promise of greater pay later when the project makes a profit (if it ever does)
  3. Points: own a percentage of the projects profit, subject to previous payouts in the “waterfall.”

All risky. (The UK seems to have a tax scheme similar to the one Canada used to have that mitigates film investment risk.)

My take: I’ll leave the last words to Ben Affleck: “It’s been the greatest pleasure to see people capture bonuses based on their own work, that reflects their merit — and to not have people feel like anonymous drones. I’ve worked in this business for a long time. I know that anyone who’s really good has put their work before their self-interest as a matter of course. But they want to be empowered.”