Category: Item of Interest

Something I found interesting written by someone else.

20th Century Fox joins rush to produce made-for-the-web shows

Post author By Philip
Post date February 23, 2012

20th Century Fox joins rush to produce made-for-the-Web shows http://t.co/frqh0NEi We’ll see more of this.

20th Century Fox’s small Fox Digital Entertainment produces this web-only series, but we see all sorts of money being invested in programming destined to stay outside the traditional distribution channels.

The series brings feature film production values to the Internet, a medium that a few years ago was dominated by grainy user-generated videos of skateboarding dogs and kids singing karaoke.

The series’ release underscores two of the biggest trends in media: a rush by established companies, includingÂ Sony Pictures,Â Netflix, Hulu and now Fox, to produce high-quality video for the Internet, and major advertisers’ demand for Hollywood-produced Internet content to promote products to young consumers who are more likely to be tethered to their laptops, tablets and smartphones than the television set.

Item of Interest The Business of Production

Episode 41: The fallout from Bunim Murray’s NLE choice.

Post author By Philip
Post date February 9, 2012

Episode 41: The fallout from Bunim Murray’s NLE choice http://t.co/df0Yr4Am A new Terence and Philip Show

Starting with the decision to go to Media Composer at Bunim Murray, Terence and Philip discuss the state of NLEs today and the business behind them. Its a long show and it covers a lot.

Not surprisingly, Terry and I agree that Media Composer was Bunim Murray’s best choice, but from there…

Item of Interest The Business of Production

Canadian musician outsources Indie Video to Bangalore

Post author By Philip
Post date February 4, 2012
1 Comment on Canadian musician outsources Indie Video to Bangalore

Canadian musician outsources his indie video to Bangalore, beauty ensues http://t.co/CJroi0xH

In a recent Terence and Philip Show we wondered whether outsourcing or automation would kill us first.Â Now we have an example of a music video being completely outsourced, with apparently great results.

Distribution Item of Interest

The Entertainment Industry Is Large and Growing… Not Shrinking.

Post author By Philip
Post date January 30, 2012

The Entertainment Industry Is Large & Growing… Not Shrinking http://t.co/mTpfHe2C

Actually this is no surprise. The traditional players – RIAA and MPAA – keep complaining about how their “industry” is shrinking, but in fact:

Distribution Item of Interest

How Copyright Industries Con Congress

Post author By Philip
Post date January 20, 2012

How Copyright Industries Con Congress http://t.co/5c9Ye2Yq

I’ve long said that there is no credible support for the ridiculous figures of “loss” to the US economy either in dollars or jobs. Even the US Government Accountability Office says there is no credible support for any of the ridiculous figures of loss promulgated by the MPAA and RIAA. And yet, the numbers are repeated by politicians and the mainstream media to “prove” that “piracy” is a problem “we can all agree on”.

No we do not “all agree”.

Distribution Item of Interest

The President’s challenge (on SOPA)

Post author By Philip
Post date January 16, 2012

The President’s challenge http://t.co/g4LQL9SsÂ was to the tech community to “solve” the “piracy problem” in the White House’s rejection of the current form of SOPA.

But it misses the point and Nat Torkington nailed it brilliantly. I’d post the whole thing but that would not be right. It’s short, go read it.

Item of Interest The Business of Production

Changing Viewing Habits the Key to Winning the Streaming Video War.

Post author By Philip
Post date January 15, 2012
2 Comments on Changing Viewing Habits the Key to Winning the Streaming Video War.

Changing Viewing Habits the Key to Winning the Streaming Video War http://t.co/IDLK7vDg

My first thought when reading that headline was “well, d’oh”, because it seemed like an oversimplification of the scale of the problem. Sure, if everyone switched over to streaming video for their media consumption, then we’d be in a different position. Trouble is, people generally are watching more television than ever, via more traditional channels than internet delivered streaming content.

Business & Marketing Item of Interest

Someone Forgot to Tell Reality that the Entertainment Industry was Dying!

Post author By Philip
Post date January 13, 2012

Someone Forgot To Tell Reality That The Entertainment Industry Was Dying http://t.co/htUEeWBA

According to the Department of Labor statistics, employment in the entertainment industry has increased:

Item of Interest The Business of Production

Will we be outsourced or automated out existence?

Post author By Philip
Post date January 11, 2012

Will we be outsourced or automated out of existence? http://t.co/ytsovtbR

In this episode Terence and Philip discuss the outsourcing of editing jobs, remote (a.k.a cloud) editing and automation in production. Whatâ€™s happening now and how will it evolve in the near future. Philip also sneaks in a preview ofÂ an interesting showÂ heâ€™ll be involved with in 2012.

Item of Interest The Business of Production

How the long tail cripples bonus content/multimedia.

Post author By Philip
Post date January 10, 2012
2 Comments on How the long tail cripples bonus content/multimedia.

How the long tail cripples bonus content/multimedia http://t.co/PoDriUI7

I have a friend who used to do a large amount of bonus material for one of the major studios as they progressed through releasing their back catalog. He has already noted that, as of about two years ago, that work dried up completely and now is no longer part of his business, which fortunately is still fairly healthy for him.

This is a depressing reality check, and is probably the counter argument to “the year of Transmedia“. Transmedia is seriously expensive to produce!

The same thing that happened to music is going to be true of books. The typical ebook costs about $10 in out of pocket expenses to write (more if you count coffee and not just pencils). But if we add in $50,000 for app coding, $10,000 for a director and another $500,000 for the sort of bespoke work that was featured inÂ Al Goreâ€™s recent â€˜bookâ€™, you can see the problem. The publisher will never have a chance to make this money back.

Sure, there will be experiments at the cutting edge, but no, theyâ€™re not going to pay off regularly enough for it to become an industry. The quality is going to remain in the writing and in the bravery of ideas, not in teams of people making expensive digital books.

The market didnâ€™t really make a conscious choice here, but the choice has been made: itâ€™s not a few publishers putting out a few books for the masses. No, the market for the foreseeable future is a million publishers publishing to 100 million readers. Do the math. Lots of choice, not a lot of whistles. And no bells.