So say technology company Alcatel-Lucent ;

The British internet TV market could generate revenues of £1.78bn by 2011...Alcatel-Lucent claims internet TV services could have a market share of between 22 and 37 per cent in the UK within three years, depending on how aggressively they are promoted. The findings were calculated by the number of people who said they would like to use the services and the amount they were willing to pay.

It is very interesting to note the slow (but sure) change in how large media companies react to YouTube - from complaining and asking for items to be removed, to now asking for a cut of the ad revenues ;

In the last few months, CBS, Universal Music, Lionsgate, Electronic Arts and other companies have stopped prodding YouTube to remove unauthorized clips of their movies, music videos and other content and started selling advertising against them.
...
"We don’t want to condone people taking our intellectual property and using it without our permission," said Curt Marvis, the president of digital media at Lionsgate Entertainment, which owns films like 'Dirty Dancing' and the 'Saw' series of horror movies, "But we also don’t like the idea of keeping fans of our products from being able to engage with our content.” he said. “For the most part, people who are uploading videos are fans of our movies. They’re not trying to be evil pirates, and they’re not trying to get revenue from it."

Echo's of the PotterWar saga ? 

Joss Whedon, creator of TV dramas such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer's new creation 'Doctor Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog ' is being touted as a possible TV-meets-Web Film model ;

It is a TV show that has never been shown on TV, an internet video that looks nothing like an internet video. It was made for the fun of it, not for ratings or profit, and put on the web in the hope that someone would notice. The fact that they did, in their millions, has delivered a shock to the Hollywood system, raising the spectre of writers, directors and actors bypassing major producers and selling directly to audiences online.

From the Technology Guardian , Radiohead go Open Source Media ;

Radiohead's new single, House of Cards, features a promotional video that has been "filmed" without the use of a camera or conventional lighting. Instead the band has used two advanced visualisation techniques to produce an assembly of computer renderings in real time....The live action promo was created entirely with visualisations of that data. But what is most interesting is the way that Radiohead has decided to "open source" the project, allowing anyone to use the data to produce their own interpretation of the promo. 

It is interesting to notice the inclusion of Radiohead & Thom Yorke in the Guardian Media's Top 100 People , on the back of their sucsess with new media models ;

At a time when musicians and record labels are struggling to persuade people to pay for their music, the Oxford band turned the issue on its head with the digital release of their seventh album, In Rainbows, and invited fans to pay as much - or as little - as they thought it was worth. It is a pioneering example of the new business model in today's digital landscape, with creatives cutting out the middle man - in Radiohead's case, their old record label EMI - and selling the content online themselves. 

(Tom from plugincinema says he paid £5 for his copy and he loves it!)

Greenwald, 62, began his career in television before directing movies, including the kitsch classic Xanadu, starring Olivia Newton-John. The death of his father and the 9/11 attacks convinced him to switch to doing more socially worthwhile work. He began making feature-length documentaries, tackling such targets as Fox News - in 2004's Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism - and the world's biggest retailer in Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.

The films were critically praised and reached a large audience, but Greenwald decided to abandon long documentaries and move into producing fast turnaround online videos 16 months ago.

Calling it "an interesting transition", Greenwald recalls being in the same editing room a few months ago in which he once edited a six-hour mini-series. "Back then I was trying to lose 20 minutes from an edit - now the finished film I am making may only be four minutes long and the job is to lose 20 seconds."...

"You could spend 12 months making a documentary and releasing it, and having your moment in the sun about something that may no longer be in the news cycle any more. Or you can spend 24 hours to put together a short viral video which can actually make a difference." 

We interviewed Robert at plugincinema, as well as flagging Outfoxed as an interesting example of open source media . How is he funded, you might ask? 8,000 subscribers who give monthly donations of around $10 a month.

 Recieved by email;

AsoloArtFilmFestival Asolo, August 29th – September 7th 2008

641 works coming from 52 countries

The 27th edition of the AsoloArtFilmFestival will take place from _August 29th to September 7th 2008, in_ Asolo (TV), at Teatro E. Duse.

The Festival was revived in 2001 in the wake of the "Festival of Art Films and Artist biography", founded in 1973 by Flavia Paulon, brilliant biographer and soul of the Venice Film Festival.  Holding on to its continuity, but also opening itself to new means of expression, the Festival was founded again by the association A.I.A.F., with the name of AsoloArtFilmFestival. The Festival consists in six sections: Films on Art, Artist’s Biographies, Video Art and Computer Art, Films produced by Schools of Cinema, Architecture and Design, Making of.

The Films that we received during this edition are 641, coming from 52 countries. The Selection Committee is now making the selection and the list of selected films for each category will soon be published.

http://www.asoloartfilmfestival.it

There has been plenty of deals where film industries have been buying into games companies, but it is interesting to note that the increasing power of games as a media form is resulting in a games publisher buying a film company ;

Ubisoft has heralded its acquisition of the VFX firm responsible for effect in movies such as Sin City and 300 as "a groundbreaking event for digital entertainment". At a press conference in Montreal today Ubisoft Montreal, the firm's biggest internal studio, announced the purchase of local VFX outfit Hybride, which works in cinema, TV and advertising. 

There is a very interesting post on Techdirt asking this question and giving some interesting pointers to future posibilities;

For years, in discussing how copyrights really aren't necessary, it's always only a matter of time until someone brings up the infamous $200 million question -- first asked to me by someone at NBC Universal years ago: "But how will Universal make $200 million movies without copyright?" As we've explained, that's the wrong question....The real question is how will movies make money -- and that's easy enough to answer. As plenty of folks have been pointing out for years, the movie business isn't selling movies, but selling seats to an experience. Put on a good moviegoing experience and the money will still come in.

From an interesting email we recieved:

CINEMA TOUS ECRANS, in Geneva, Switzerland opens a new multimedia section: REGISTER YOUR FILM NOW !

Cinéma tous Ecrans opens a new multimedia section, which will be partly competitive, comprising the following categories:

Multimedia Interactive Fiction: fiction and interactivity;
Series for the Web: serial audiovisual works with possible extensions for other screens;
Auto-produced Drama for the Web: the best of drama produced on the web;
Cinéma Tout Mobile: international competition for short films up to 2 min for mobile phones.

The works and entry forms can be submitted until 30 August 2008. The entry forms can be downloaded on our website: www.cinema-tous-ecrans.ch

A new book out, The Cinematic Experience edited by Boris Debackere and Arie Altena has lots of interesting stuff in it;

The book focuses as much on theories of the cinematic experience, as it does on the practice of artists working in the fields of cinema, contemporary media art and sound. It shows how artists develop their work and theories on the cinematic experience‭, ‬using different technologies and materials‭, ‬and offers a many-sided‭ ‬theoretical journey into the history, present and future of the magic we call cinema. 

  But then we would say it is interesting as we're in it ;)

Bristol is going to play host to a new film festival that sounds really exciting - focusing on independent filmmaking and with three local film exhibition and network outfits – Cineformation, Bluescreen and the Misfit Collective - behind it, it should be great.  They have issued a call for entries;

On the weekend of 14/15th June, the Bristol Filmmakers Festival 2008 comes to the Watershed and the Arnolfini, an event which gathers together and celebrates the independent film community in the city....

The weekend will feature a host of special screenings and provide the chance for independent filmmakers to meet, swap ideas and knowledge.  More information will be released closer to the event, but we are currently calling out to independent filmmakers in the city to send in their films so that we can select the strongest programme to screen.  The criteria is that the films must be submitted on DVD along with the submission form that can be obtained by emailing This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it - also the address to direct any questions.  The deadline is Monday 26th May, and films should be sent to BFMF2008, C/o The Misfit Rising, 82 Colston St, Bristol BS1 5BB.

We are also inviting filmmakers to submit material to the Sweded Classics section of the Festival.  Following on from Michel Gondry’s feature film Be Kind Rewind , we are looking for ‘sweded’ films, where a classic popular feature film – or extract – is refilmed with DIY inspiration and resources (and at much shorter length). Can you swede the whole of Terminator in 6 minutes?   There is a later deadline for Sweded Classics: Saturday 7th June at the above address.

There is also a website with more details and the entry form; www.bristolfilm.co.uk

Grand Theft Auto IV is out – and the hype is huge.

As with the launch of its predecessor, San Andreas ;

The fact that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas eclipsed the sales of every other videogame in the UK on its launch weekend is important, but only to the games industry. The fact that revenues from the opening weekend of the game narrowly beat the UK's biggest ever movie box office opening weekend (Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban, if you're wondering) is a lot more relevant; and combined with the fact that the buzz and media coverage generated by the game has touched the hallowed levels reached by a new movie release, it provides more proof of the growing importance of videogames than could be provided by a mountain of figures.

It is again being compared to film. This time not as an equal, but as a predator !

GTA IV is expected to earn more during its first few days of release than the $400m made by the third instalment of Pirates of the Caribbean, the Hollywood record holder, in its opening weekend....The film magazine Variety has suggested the game's success could affect interest in this summer's blockbusters, which may struggle to compete for the same audience of young men....Iron Man, the high-octane movie based on the comic book character, which is expected to be one of the year's biggest action films, is just one of those which could be harmed by going on release the same week as Grand Theft Auto IV.

 

 

"A newly formed NBC Universal production unit is teaming up with an advertising agency to create programs around sponsors' products, the company said....NBC Universal Digital Studio will work with a division of Omnicom Group Inc. to create programs that help advertisers sell their products, the entertainment giant announced in a statement Thursday. The programming will be broadcast on NBC Universal's digital properties, such as Web sites."

"In this case, the more the show is copied, the more 'viewers' it gets and the more people see the sponsors' message: TV on your PC."

"No one wants to shop at one store for Sony BMG musicians, another one for Warner Bros musicians, another for EMI musicians, another one for Universal Music musicians and yet another for indie musicians. And, at the price point Sony BMG is talking about ($9 to $12/month) if you want subscriptions to all the fragmented stores, you end up pay $75 to $100/month for DRM-encrusted subscription plans. That's not going to work. Time to go back to the drawing board and not come up with ideas that were discarded five years ago."

"Apple is in discussions with the big music companies about an 'all you can eat' model for buying music that would give customers free access to its entire iTunes music library in exchange for paying a premium for its iPod and iPhone devices. Finally, it looks like the industry (or at least Apple) is 'getting it'. The real question is not whether the big music companies will go for it, but rather, who will be the first one to get smart and agree to offer it?"

"But first, lets take a look at the physics that are shaping today’s media space....We’re moving from a world of limited distribution channels and therefore abundant attention (CBS was not scared of losing any of us as customers 20 years ago, I came home from school every day and watched Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island because it was THE ONLY THING ON), to a world of unlimited distribution and therefore attention scarcity (when Zoe watches TV it’s TiVo and she doesn’t even watch TV after school, she gets on the computer, uses Facebook, does her homework with the help of Wikipedia, IMs with friends, etc)."

"In 2001 the UK Band 'Dodgy' raised enough money to finance an album through this very method. The group raised £15,000 ($25,000) through Internet based micro-payment systems (such as PayPal), combined with an appeal to their fan base. Fans were offered either a small share for £25 ($40), which also gave them a mention on the album sleeve, or a large share for £1000 ($1800) with a percentage of the profits from the sale of the album. Triumphantly, the band's website proclaimed "...we finally raised the entire recording budget to record their fourth and best album to date by encouraging fans, supporters and visitors to this marvellous site to 'invest' in the album." If this has worked for music, it seems logical that the same ideology could be applied to other artistic outlets including online film."

"A groundbreaking project to create a £1 million film and give it away to over 1 million people using the Internet and a global community of members.."

Following our look at the general issues facing the media and the difficulties of trying to transplant existing business models into the digital realm (part 1) - via Digital Rights Management (part 2), what are we left with (we note the failure of Weedshare, the p2p project that aimed to distribute DRM media files).  Well, there are a couple of well established methods, as well as a few new ones that have arrived on the scene.  Today we look at those staples of media; advertising and sponsorship.

Using the audience gathered by a media event and offering space to other companies to either tell the audience about their products (advertising) or associating the media event with the company (sponsorship) are ubiquitous methods of financing media.  Indeed, the very term 'soap opera' comes from the original sponsors of content aimed at selling housewives washing powder.  You might have noticed that recently this was taken up a level when dance outfit, Groove Armada 'signed' to drinks company Bacardi.  Bacardi already promote their products via music events, so this fits well and unlike the music-selling model of media, when the band put out an MP3, the more sharing the better, from the point-of-view of their sponsors.  Some might ask, so what about creative freedom?  It is now unlikely that Groove Armada willbe playing a gig for the Boycott Bacardi campaign any time soon, but then would they have anyway?  Tours have had commercial sponsors for some time, it is just that now the band are cutting out the middle-man.

How might this work for film?  Films already have product placement, the James Bond franchise being a good example - the same idea taken further would mean that for the sponsors of the film the more sharing of the film, the better - the studio can still charge for the cinema tickets (after all, going to see a film is about the event as much as what is on the screen - we pay for the experience and not so much for the film itself).  They might not make the money from the DVD sales, the increased sharing means they can charge the sponsors more.  (There is a core question about commercialism and artistic freedom here, but selling CDs and DVDs is not the answer!)

This method is not unlike a viral approach - short, catchy films that push a message.  One example of this is the exploding mints & cola film that reputedly netted its creators over $35,000.  Not only that, but this sort of 'guerilla' marketing is what lots of companies are keen to do to reach younger audiences who are using increasingly less and less old media.

On the subject, advertising is the business model of that media behemoth Google, and it is so successful because the internet allows it to sell targeted advertising space to people interested in the products.  The old-media advertising model is struggling with this as more and more advertising moves to new media for this very reason; on TV or a newspaper I can take out an ad and know that a certain percentage of people would be interested in my product, but it is a bit of a scatter-gun approach.  With Google, my ads only appear next to the search of people interested in my product - a far more efficient method!  This is the revenue method used by YouTube - but also sites such as blip.tv and Revver, who offer their creators a share of the money.

To underline this shift in ad-patterns;

"Everyone talks about advertising dollars shifting online, but when you're fighting all day in the trenches it's easy to miss the big picture.  Here's the big picture:  US advertising revenue at 4 big online media companies--Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), AOL (TWX), and MSN (MSFT)--grew by $860 million in Q2, or 26%.  US advertising revenue at 15 big television, newspaper, magazine, radio, and outdoor companies (Time Warner, Viacom, CBS, etc.) shrank by $280 million in Q2, or 3%."

But not content with being the biggest online advertiser - Google has moved in on the TV and radio markets too!

BlinkX, the video search technology company we noted at the end of last year , recently accounced a deal with the BBC ;

The creators of video search engine Blinkx are in talks with the BBC about a deal to supply it with technology for the corporation's iPlayer, which allows viewers to download programmes over the internet. The BBC wants the company to provide it with a search facility that will enable users of the service to find programmes quickly and easily.

We got an interesting email recently about a project called 'Wonderland';

The site www.wonderlandstream.com is a guide to the best films screening online. With a filmmaker membership it guides audiences to the films that other filmmakers think are the best of the best of those on the internet.   Wonderland doesn't host the movies but simply links to the sites the movies are screening online, so all filmmakers need to do is submit links for their films wherever they may be showing online.  Films submitted between now and May 2nd are eligible for the Wonderland Awards held in Paris at the Cinematheque Francaise in June.

Check it out at: www.wonderlandstream.com

Following on from part 1, our look at the challenges facing the media industry from new technology, we now look at DRM.  DRM aka Digital Rights Management is arguably the digital extension of the existing 'physical commodity' model of media. By this, we mean that media is financed by selling a copy of the media artefact. For example, when you buy a DVD you are buying the limited rights to use a copy of the media artefact in a legally prescribed way; you can watch it at home on your TV but you can't screen it in your local cinema and charge for entry. When media started going digital it became apparent that there was an issue with this model. If I have a VHS video you are interested in, I can loan it to you. If I have a digital file of a film you are interested in, I can give you a copy. With the first there is still only one copy involved. With the second we get two copies. So DRM was developed to stop people using digital files in ways they were not supposed to; so echoing the existing 'physical commodity' model of media.

But right from the offset DRM hit problems. Some took issue with the name itself. The Free Software Foundation were unhappy with the use of the word 'rights', arguing that it is misleading and posed the alternative term 'Digital Restrictions Management'. Some DRM was implemented in physical systems that contained digital artefacts such as CDs, but they hit problems when some types of CD Player could not recognise and play the disc. 
The proliferation of digital media and its formats have not only created more problems for DRM technology but also more potential areas they feel it needs to be imposed. In music there seems to finally be a slipping away of DRM; Apple now offer DRM-free music though iTunes (though the fact that it costs more than a track with DRM has been pointed to as proof that DRM lowers the value of the product ).  At a recent conference on the subject (in December 2007) Ian Rogers, VP Video and Media Applications at Yahoo! Music stated ;

"Hopefully we all agree it’s good news that DRM is finally dead. Five years ago I started saying we were in the age of PURE CONSUMER CONFUSION...and it wouldn’t be gone until DRM was gone and digital media was interoperable. With proprietary DRM there are only two possible outcomes: PURE CONSUMER CONFUSION or Monopoly. We’ve been saddled with both in varying degrees. But now that MP3s are finally for sale we’re headed toward much less consumer confusion and a much better value proposition for sales. Please don’t look at this as the labels 'giving up'. It’s much better seen as an acknowledgment of the physics of the space and an appreciation that attempting to create scarcity only wastes precious time and money."

This does not mean that DRM has gone away; far from it.  One could speculate that it does mean that in music, with so much available and the huge number of easy-to-use ways to get music; from legal free music given by bands on MySpace to illegally downloaded music though p2p, to legally purchased music via iTunes and the like; it does look the the ability to impose something that lowers the value of a commodity is a hard-sell with so many other options.  Thus far, in the digital realm, what has happened to music has then happened to film - does this means DRM is in difficulty overall?  One of the most prominent strands of DRM around today can be found in the new Microsoft operating system, Windows Vista - however its sales have not been great and it has come under intense criticism for its DRM, called 'Protected Media Path '. One analysis of Windows Vista's DRM noted ;

"[The analysis] describes in great detail the various measures Microsoft has taken to lock down Windows on behalf of Hollywood....in order to playback HD-DVD and BluRay content, Microsoft agreed to degrade video and audio functionality in Windows...leaving the user with minimal (eg VGA) functionality."

This may lead one to the same conclusion that a well-known blog Techdirt came to, when trying to fit an older model (the 'physical commodity' model) into a new hole (digital network media);

"However, it's interesting to see that relying on the supposedly 'successful' old model is starting to come under stress from everyone else in the industry. It highlights, once again, that when we talk about these models, it's silly to compare the 'old way' and any 'new way.' It's more important to recognize that the old way just isn't sustainable. You need to compare the new models to what the old models are trending towards."

The paradigm of charging for reproduction seemed appropriate during the age of type-setters, however, we need to move on.  This is a new digital age, with many media artefacts being reducible to code.  The industries involved need to move on, to recognise its a different landscape and work with the artists and producers; allow the free-flow of media artefacts.  With encouragement and a loose grip, who knows what new markets
could open up?

Stage 6, the YouTube-style site for high-quality video uploads, which we had flagged before as an example of a challenger to YouTube's crown has sadly decided to close as of today (28th Feb).  The news was broken by a statement posted on the site;

In many ways, though, the service did succeed, beyond even our own initial expectations. Stage6 became very popular very quickly. We helped gain exposure for some talented filmmakers who brought great videos to the attention of an engaged community. We helped prove that it's possible to distribute true high definition video on the Internet....So why are we shutting the service down? Well, the short answer is that the continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide....We couldn't continue to run Stage6 and focus on our broader strategy to make it possible for anyone to enjoy high-quality video on any device. So, in July of last year we announced that we were kicking off an effort to explore strategic alternatives for Stage6, which is a fancy way of saying we decided we would either have to sell it, spin it out into a private company or shut it down....Stage6 will cease to exist as an online destination. But the larger DivX universe will continue...

R.I.P. Stage6.com

"So basically what YouTube are saying is, go away and work hard to create great content AND build an audience to win the grand prize which is an ad-revenue deal with us....Sounds a lot like a record company to me where bands slog it out for years, usually at a loss, hoping to appear on the industry's radar...So why not open the scheme to everybody..."

"U2's manager yesterday called on artists to join him in forcing the 'hippy' technology and internet executives he blames for the collapse of the music industry to help save it...He was speaking at the Midem music conference in Cannes, which has been dominated by talk of new revenue models that might save an industry brought to its knees by piracy and falling sales."

plugincinema recently published some torrent files where you can get plugincinema films, as part of the catbot.org peer-2-peer project!  These are the first public torrents on the project (and are a bit of a test, so if you have any problems or questions, please contact tom at fluffylogic.net, thanks!  The following are now online;

break_it_down

This short documentary takes a look at the emerging Breakcore music scene and its battle with copyright. Breakcore is a form of irreverent, mashed-up music typified by sampling and broken beats. The film features artists such as Parasite, Donna Summer (aka Jason Forrest), Rotator, Bong Ra, Kovert, DJ Ripley, Knifehandchop, Anarchic Hardrive and Public Enemy.

plugincinema Short Film Collection No.1

4 short films from the plugincinema website: Andy Lomas's underwater breakcore video, 'Deathsucker', Anakissed's play on compression 'George the Mewvie', early viral email film 'Teasecat' and super-super short art film by Paul Rit's 'Tuned'. Enjoy!

Machinima Skate Dreams

This film is an experiment in on-line, low-bandwidth/resolution filmmaking using Tony Hawk's Skateboarding as the original inspiration.  This edits bits together using Premiere and some snazy transition and captured VHS footage. It uses some original music by Parasite to edit the footage to.

Fighting Women II

This film is the continuation of a project Ana started in the spring of 1998. The result of this was a half hour documentary. the Northern Lights Film Awards. Since then Ana's attention has been focused on producing films for the Internet. Fighting Women II is an attempt to create a short web piece that still has many of the concerns of the original documentary.

If, upon reading this, you are a bit confused as to what this is all about then the following links may help;

If you want to know what a peer-2-peer system or cat bot is, click here .
If you want to know more about torrents in general, try this.
There are links to software here ; (If you just want to download the films above, then you first need a BitTorrent client, see the link ontthe page!)

- Integrate Hulu - almost every single comment made on our recent articles about Joost involves a complaint about the lack of quality content....Sure, the interface will need some tweaking, but that’s a small price to pay if you get instant access to tons of quality programming in return.

- Turn Joost into a podcasting client. There are literally hundreds of great video podcasts out there...So why can’t I watch any of them with Joost?

- Build a web version. This is pretty much a no-brainer. Sure, P2P won’t work on the web, and there are plenty of competitors out there. But it’s about offering your users the convenience of being able to watch your content where they want and how they want..

- Build a Firefox plug-in. Consider it the next step in merging the web with the Joost app. A plug-in could make use of Joost’s P2P network, its widgets and its community and at the same time allow access to any other content online...

- Get Joost on the Wii. Forget about Apple TV. The real home entertainment powerhouse is Nintendo...Give me the ability to control my videos with some wild Wiimote gestures, and I’ll chose Joost over Hulu any day...

"Toshiba America Consumer Products said it cut prices of its HD DVD players effective January 13 to boost market adoption of its next-generation DVD players by mainstream consumers after what it said was a successful fourth quarter in unit sales....Toshiba's players will now star