Through the LCD clearly

Google has helped host Life Magazine’s Photo Archive.  Give it a view.

More to come later, on a writing spree at the moment.

I’ve mentioned 42 entertainment and their marketing endeavors before.  Slashfilm has an article and series of links about their Alternative Reality Branding efforts.

Gizmodo has an excellent write up on lenses. How they work, how they’re made, etc. Give it a read it’s one of the better ones I’ve read.

I’ve been using Photoshop for just over 10 years now (Version 5 if I remember correctly) and will continue to do so. Via digg I stumbled across 10 free alternatives for Photoshop. I’ve mentioned Gimp and some of the other alternatives before but it’s worth taking a look at.

Digg has been fruitful this evening.

Movies that thrived during recessions. I’d rather see some data on which studios thrived during downturns but that may be too somber to post now.

In a humorous and possibly blasphemous ceremony.  Ash Wednesday has a new ritual. I would recommend watching the commentary on army of darkness (the official bootleg edition) as it’s among the funniest I’ve ever listened to.

The horror film is a staple of low budget film making and near and dear to many of my friends. Of that genre the most popular continues to be the zombie film. In a this is why I love the internet post, someone has outlined the emergence of the zombie in popular culture.

I’ve been promising updates on 16mm lenses for some time, I’m doing some DIY and waiting on one or two more packages to arrive but I promise to have some pictures and tutorials posted soon.

In small doses I’ve been reading several books on the global economy and off-site fulfillment procedures. One of these books is The World is Flat and it’s has provided ample food for thought. For better or worse the technological advances of the last century have shattered our once insular domains.

What Admiral Perry had to threaten bombardment to do, MTV-Viacom can inadvertently achieve through broadcast. Perhaps America’s greatest asset is its ability to exert influence via the media. Some may level accusations of cultural imperialism but clearly Great Walls are a thing of the past. Governments can throttle the flow of information but never truly contain it. The 2007-2008 unrest in Burma was, at least in my eyes,  proof of that assertion.

I’ve talked about the promise of mobile content in developing countries, the access to information it could allow under privileged children in those markets, and bolstering the fourth estate. What I’ve yet to discuss are some of the possible downsides.

In the midst of an economic crisis much has been said about out-sourcing and how it’s cut into the job market here in the U.S. My feelings on this aren’t exactly neutral and I’m more than willing to submit to charges of protectionism in regards to this matter.

Whilst it’s great for stockholders, and workers overseas; those of us not who aren’t part of a major corporate entity out-sourcing will continue to be an escalating problem. This is not necessarily a new trend. Traditional hand drawn animation left the shores of the United States and Continental Europe decades ago. The animation was done in Japan, South Korea, China, and even North Korea. Now with rapidly growing storage space and high speed broadband access this becomes an issue for other sectors of the entertainment industry.  Any task that can be broken down into component steps and be done elsewhere will be. Logging, grading, and replicating footage are all headed down this path.

Lucas Film Animation Ltd. has already opened an digital animation center in Singapore, Eastern Bloc countries are being utilized for sound and grading tasks, and storyboarding can now be done via someone in India. This is wonderful for locals in the area as it improves their standard of living and infrastructure but the company’s increased savings are not passed on to us the consumers. Actor’s salaries will continue to skyrocket (for the short term at least), ticket prices will not drop, and tie in properties will increase but post production staff and freelancers are going to need to adapt.

We can react by playing the luddite, bemoaning this turn of events, or by using other technological changes to our advantage. The promise of innovation is a double edged sword but one that can cut in our favour. Small and agile business will still be able to deliver niche content.  Soon I’ll expand on how that can be done.

J. Ewan Van Dijkhorst

Hello all, I’ve been traveling again so please forgive the lack of content.

I just wrapped on the St. Louis Episode of Clean House (E! / Style Networks) and really enjoyed it. I might go poke about their website and do an analysis of their online presence in the coming weeks.

In the meanwhile I have two links to share.

11 alternative and open source design software programs.

40 Adobe After Effect Tutorials.

I was going to try and make the True False Film Festival next week but may only be able to attend some of the workshops. If any of you are interested in car pooling there let me know, I have a boat of a car.

In essence very few movies make a substantial profit. Studios churn out dozens of movies hoping that the success of one mega hit will surpass the loses of the others. Yes millions will be expended in hiring name actors and engaging in a full on publicity blitz but at the end of the day this model is still vulnerable to audience and market whims. Popular trends in the entertainment business are subject to the cyclical nature that also dictates the course of history. Disaster movies, Vampire Movies,  even 3D! (please do not try smell-o-vision again). These wax and wane in popularity but always seem to return to the spotlight. The other downside though is that the financial stability of the current system is also caught up in this tide. The high budget spectacle, reliance on name actors, and banking on current trends has on several occasions severely burnt the industry. With failures such as Citizen Kane, Heaven’s Gate etc sinking careers and sinking those involved. It is in those moments that self financed or outside the box films; Easy Rider, Mean Streets, Clerks, Reservoir Dogs, etc come to ascendancy.  The studios then typically react by financing dozens upon dozens of similar movies; low budget, limited appeal, and no names attached and inevitability return to the cycle of blockbusters. For every Star Wars there is a Battlefield Earth, for every Memento a Delgo and the cycle continues. For all of us without the power to greenlight despite how apparent upcoming trends may appear there is the option of self financing.

Financing films remains a tricky proposition. In University we were taught to approach dentists, lawyers, doctors, and other investors who essentially expect a production to lose money and then use it for tax write off purposes. Forward Money has an article on a new method for film investing Indievest. It breaks down to be more of an investment club with buy in options. What makes Indievest something to examine is they also handle marketing, and distribution which in the end of the day proves to be where other “independents” often fall short.

In addition to relying on strangers with candy for money film financing has to come from other sources. The double edged sword that is having household names or at least names attached to your project comes into play selling distribution rights to territories before production has even begun. Then of course one can do in kind deals, product placement (E.T is perhaps the progenitor of this trend in modern movies), or pay with the promises of net or gross points.

How is this going to change in the future? Well the ability to execute viral and niche marketing campaigns via the Internet make it possible for independent features to attract additional eyeballs, since a definitive gate keeping/distribution system has yet to gain a stranglehold online distribution is relatively open. But we are already at the point at least with feature rather than episodic content that viewers are going to start gravitating towards names. The backing or finances needed to get Nathan Fillion on board an online production already provides for a huge advantage over a homegrown feature in the Midwest.  It’s very likely that we will be drawn into the same cycle for online productions that has so long dictated traditional features.

The ability for fragmentation though now is unsurpassed. Filmmakers will still have to compete with the big names, with flashy effects, and publicity engines that permeate every crevice of society. The larger content producers will still have to concentrate on maximum potential return of investment leaving content producers who don’t want to rush out a disaster movie every 20 years able, if streamlined enough, to carve out a living in Niche markets. The ability of the Internet to allow for selective targeting of these groups and the existing infrastructure to reach them is perhaps the ultimate promise of the New Media. Rather than have to get 20 million viewers to make broad advertising attractive producers can remain agile and target smaller groups.

Be it a Jane Austin or Tea Party movie for my mother, a documentary on an obscure underwater shrimp for my brother, a road trip movie with vintage motorcycles for my father, or an history piece on 1930s aircraft for my uncle the Internet allows for much more than traditional demographics to focus on.

J. Ewan Van Dijkhorst

Money. It’s not just something I don’t have any of but also the primary motivator force behind corporate technological innovation in the New Media age.  It sometimes appears that only when larger companies are faced with the the glaring realization that someone else is garnering a fortune do they begrudgingly branch into new territory.  This reluctance to risk money and go into early implementation is a monumental obstacle to corporations.

The difference between a conglomerated empire today and a ruinous husk tomorrow will largely be decided  by the ability and willingness to embrace alternate revenue streams.  We are nearing an age where agile development and the ability to quickly adopt new infrastructures will be the single biggest index of survivability. The old axiom “Adapt or Die” rapidly becomes predict or die.  I-tunes and the iPod are the perfect illustrator of this.  Napster may have had a pay to download store beforehand, and Rio certainly beat Apple to the creation of a practical portable mp3 player but Apple’s vertical integration (and perhaps DRM) coupled with its branding prowess all but assured them dominance of the digital music distribution landscape. The major recording studios, retailers such as Wal-mart, and eventually other outlets have been regulated to a subordinate position in this arrangement. They are not the gatekeepers of this new market and their ability to dictate terms and prices are severely curtailed by that fact.

The question though is how do small scale content producers earn enough to fuel the next generation of development?

The way in which content earns has gone through many recent transitions but in some cases has come full circle.

The earliest days of radio and television relied on sponsorship. Entire blocks of air time were purchased from the networks, productions were completely contracted to or funded by said sponsor, and the audience got to enjoy a LOT of talk about said product over the programs course. Viral marketing campaigns, and ARGs are the true successors to this tradition.

When production costs and audience demands increased product placement became more prevalent. Had Opie been puffing away on a particular brand of cigarette it would not likely have been a character choice by Mr. Howard. This is becoming a viable income source once again. Those shots of a Panasonic device in Transformers, the Soda crate National Security‘s warehouse shoot-out, the convenient Dell monitors in 24, do not linger because editing conventions dictated so but rather because all those companies paid a premium to have their product featured.

Up until the age of the DVR the CPM methodology reigned supreme. CPM or cost per thousand formula requires more higher ratings. An advertiser agrees to pay a set fee per thousand eyeballs that view the show and presumably their advert. This method still works well for websites but with the increasing difficulty in keeping accurate ratings and the ability of many viewers to simply fast forward through their spot problems arise.

Pay Per Click in its current practice is one of the least content producer friendly forms of revenue generation. It seems that the per click usually works out to be less than simple CPM methods. Unless they lead to….

Referrals and commissions have proved to be an excellent source of ancillary income. Your favorite site’s link to a product on amazon is likely to generate a low percentage referral. Call it redirection kickback, gift of mutual assurance whichever you may this is an under-tapped market. With a little convergence and a pre-existing technology it’s what I plan to focus on in the long term.

I’m going to go more into depth in each of these, provide an analysis on how these can best be utilized what kind of content/demographic they’re ideal for and where they may be heading. I also want to cover other distribution be it direct or indirect purchase, rentals, merchandising, and of course convergence. I also want to look at pay to surf sites, survey point redemption operations, and online gate-keeping.

We’re not at adverts being beamed into our heads Futurama style.. Not yet anyway.

J. Ewan Van Dijkhorst

It’s been a while since I’ve last updated. The job hunt is all consuming at this point but I found a few links well worth sharing.

Microsoft has unleashed what it means to be a Garage Band killer Songsmith. I’ve yet to test it out but on multiple occasions I’ve had to rely on Window’s Movie Maker  to make a last minute adjustment when AVID, Vegas, or Premiere cecided to crash. It won’t be an Pro-Tools killer but at $30 it’s not meant to be. I’ll wait for some reviews from some of my more active Post Sound friends but it may prove a more useful bridge between Audacity and Pro-Tools for those of us who don’t have 64 Channel mixer banks to worry about.

Make Magazine has an excellent post and series of links on free I-phone development guides/tools.  I’d like to see the three way war between Apple, Adobe/Flash, and Microsoft’s Silverlight to be a bit closer to resolution before diving into this pond but it’s worth trying and perhaps getting a few toes wet.

As time permits I’ve been playing with encoding. For those of you unfamiliar with some of the more common standards here’s an quick peek at codecs and compression.

MIT maintains some open source lecture materials for some of their prior courses. Their Media Art’s and Sciences department has some very interesting material on well everything. I urge you all to browse through some of the material.

And some more from the I should practice what I preach department. A guide on how to set up a social media cheat sheet on any subject.

No studio love for Redbox. Thanks to Ross for yet another useful link.

I understand the appeal of the Red Box concept, when you’re a college student going to get groceries or a quick bite while finishing a project it’s nice to grab a cheap and readily available new release.

The system could use some streamlining, my primary complaint is that there should be a smaller second screen on the side with a return slot so that if you’re merely trying to return a movie (and do so on time) you need only pop it in while someone else is browsing. My secondary advice for Red Box improvements would be a more clear labeling of which movies are yet unreleased, a different color tag, a big released on such and such date imposed on the cover. Many times I’ve had to patiently wait for a couple or new users to try and rent an unreleased movie several times before they give up or before I feel it’s no longer rude to inform them. It’s happened to me as well once or twice, the text is too small to catch your eye when you’re in a rush. Thirdly the marketing display bubbles seen outside the machines NEVER correspond to the actual inventory, it’s not major as they change so often but sometimes people spend a fair amount of time double and triple checking for a title that isn’t there.

That being said I can understand people’s reservations. I have several friends who used to work or manage video rental chain shops. Some of them lost their positions I would be hesitant to blame red box but I doubt it helped.

You never see them here in L.A and personally it’s something I muse about now and again. I don’t know how much effort Universal wants to put into fighting them on the issue. Yes they won’t make as much money if people rent at the chain stores, but Redbox still has to buy the movies from wholesalers to stock them. I understand it’s a volume business but honestly that money and effort could probably be better served by investing in stronger ties with Netflix, making archives more stream friendly, and concentrating on building a bigger presence on I-tunes and Xbox.  There are some well made points in the comment section it’s worth checking out.

J. Ewan Van Dijkhorst

I’ve talked (not at any length) about the changes in the music industry due to individual track sales and the possible resurgence of emphasis on singles rather than albums. Reuters has an article on the uncertain nature of digital strategies.

This is old hat, but apparently one can make money writing I-phone applications.  I have one or two ideas but as: A. Apple and Adobe don’t play well with each other, B. I’m not a coder it might take a while.

Also via digg, 35 tools for writing online.  There are also some rumors floating around that Google will be adding more support for .pdfs in Google Docs.

I’m doing a radical overhaul of my website . I’m not attuned to html or java so it’s time to break out Flash, and give Photoshop images some alpha channel love. Those of you who are decent at coding should take a look at 10 ways to cut down on web development time.

Finally not necessarily new media related, a student at Missouri State University recovered his stolen Xbox 360 using his wireless controller. I posted because of all the Universities I went to Missouri State was the one that gave me a degree. Stealing someones 360 just before break is just harsh, doing it during finals week probably implies that you’re not really University Material anyway.

Back to drawing out element boards.

J. Ewan Van Dijkhorst