CinemaTech [ Digital cinema, democratization, and other trends remaking the movies ]
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Fox Critic Gets the Axe for Reviewing Pirated 'X-Men' Movie
Fox News fired online columnist Roger Friedman this week. His sin? Reviewing a pirated, partially-finished version of Fox's forthcoming 'X Men Origins: Wolverine.'
I have to say, I respect the impulse to do something journalistically innovative and review a partially-finished movie pulled down from a file-sharing site. What could be more contemporary? But I also feel like movie criticism involves reviewing movies when they're done... and also not encouraging readers to do things that chisel away at the economic model of actually making movies.
Kendall Whitehouse at the Wharton School has just posted a great interview with Joss Whedon, creator/writer/director of 'Firefly,' 'Serenity,' 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' and 'Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.' (His new TV series on Fox is called 'Dollhouse.')
Kendall finally gets Joss to talk, in some broad strokes, about how his original, three-part Web series, 'Dr. Horrible,' performed financially. Here's a key passage:
Knowledge@Wharton: Several numbers have been quoted regarding the overall cost of "Dr. Horrible" -- "low six-figures"; "around $200,000" -- can you set the record straight?
Whedon: We got so much of this done through people doing us favors -- department heads and people who have access to things. But you've got to pay your day-to-day crew. The actors all did it for nothing. And we all did it for nothing. So, the production costs alone -- the basic costs of filming the thing, and getting the locations, props and everything -- ran a little over $200,000.
We had a secondary budget drawn up in case of a profit, wherein we were trying to find rates for Internet materials. In some cases they didn't exist. We used models that had been created by the guild for repurposed, or reused, material that we used for original [content], because this had never come up before.
We didn't want to leave a sour taste and say, "Well, we made some money off of you guys being kind." It was like: No, everybody has to benefit from what they've done, obviously not enormously -- it's Internet money we're talking about -- but as soon as we got in the black, we paid everybody off.
So that budget was probably about twice what the original budget was.
Knowledge@Wharton: You've now earned more than twice the original cost?
Whedon: Yes.
The whole interview is well worth a read, but I also wanted to highlight this very inspiring quote from the end:
Whedon: ...A lot of people sit around and go, "How can I get this made?" The only answer is: By making it. By borrowing someone's camera. By buying a camera. They come cheap and they work well. And if you know where to point them -- and the person that you point them at is saying something interesting -- that's it! That's how it works.
I can't stress enough that I believe the best thing in the world is for everybody who feels like they have a story to tell, to tell it.
If they want to sell it, if they want to make a lot of money, they can do that -- and they can kiss their story goodbye. Because, in general, that's the last they're ever going to see of it, because somebody else will own it and they will either not make it, or make it very differently than that person hoped.
Two from the Times: Online Video Viewing Data, and Saving the DVD
- The NY Times offers some interesting data about how people consume video online: the 20 percent of viewers who watch the most video view more than 140 times as much of it as the 50 percent who watch the least. With data from comScore and Media Contacts, the Times found that the top 20 percent of viewers see 841 minutes (or 14 hours) of video every month, on average. The bottom 50 percent watch just six minutes a month.
- The Times also has a very smart examination of how studios are trying to sustain their DVD sales -- both high-def and standard-def. Brooks Barnes and Matt Richtel write:
Movie studios are fighting back by taking a page from the Internet playbook. Indeed, the centerpiece of the market rejuvenation effort is something 20th Century Fox calls “digital copy.” Fox DVDs, starting last month, now come with an additional disc holding a digital file of the title. Consumers can download the file to a computer in about five minutes — far less time than via the Internet — and then watch the movie there or transfer it to their iPod.
...But John Freeman, an industry analyst, sees the effort as a stall tactic. Although digital copies are “a step forward,” he said, that step is tantamount to Hollywood admitting that its lucrative hard-goods business is growing obsolete. Today, digital files on discs; tomorrow, mass downloading straight from the Internet.
Troubles big and small started buffeting the DVD business in 2005. First, overall sales of television shows on disc started to slip as releases lost their freshness — New to DVD! “Murder She Wrote: The Complete Eighth Season” — and consumers realized they were devoting a lot of living room space to bulky boxed sets they never watched.
Next, prices started to plummet as overall demand weakened and retailers and grocery stores turned to DVDs as loss leaders. DVDs sold for an average retail price of $15.01 last year, compared with $21.95 in 2000, according to Adams.
I did some post-MacWorld analysis for Variety, focusing mostly on the addition of movie rentals to iTunes. (Diane Garrett also wrote this piece a few days later.)
The big things that could hamstring Apple's move into rentals: the breadth of its selection, and the fact that rentals won't show up there until about a month after the DVD release. Both those limitations, in my mind, still favor Netflix.
Let me share some interesting studio exec comments that didn't make it into my piece...
- Jim Gianopoulos, chairman of 20th Century Fox, told me that his studio had eventually gotten comfortable with Apple's DRM system, Fairplay: "Nothing's perfect, but they've worked hard. The better the content protection, the easier content flows... and the more comfortable content providers are about handing over their titles." He said that digital revenues simply won't grow in the presence of rampant piracy: "None of this works if there's a parallel flow of freely-available content."
Gianopoulos also said he didn't think that digital rentals from Apple and others would necessarily undermine bricks-and-mortar rental chains, or services like Netflix. "People make choices, and they make choices that are most convenient to them. We're in all of those businesses, and we want to support all of them. It's up to those providers to provide good value."
- Thomas Lesinski, president of Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment, told me that last week's announcement from iTunes "will be the beginning of a significant digital media business." He added that Apple "learned a lot from the original Apple TV, and changes in the 2.0 version will get a lot of people interested in digital distribution in the home. It's a very easy-to-use product, and they lowered the price."
U2's 3-D Concert Film Has a Release Date ... Hulu, Almost
- I'm looking forward to the release of U2's 3-D concert movie, just set for late January, according to Variety. National Geographic is handling the distribution. No word yet on the number of screens.
- This Wall Street Journal piece makes it sound like Hulu.com, the NBC/Fox joint venture, just launched. But the site is very obviously still in a limited beta. Rebecca Dana and Kevin Delaney write:
Late Friday, Hulu closed deals with Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures Television and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. to distribute some of their content as well. The venture's flagship site, Hulu, will initially be open only to users who request an early glimpse of the site.
Some of these shows had been available already on network Web sites or via video-download services. Neither of NBC and Fox's two main network rivals, CBS Corp.'s CBS and Walt Disney Co.'s ABC, has gone as far in making their content available online. That could change, however, as CBS has held talks with Hulu about providing the network's TV shows to the venture, according to people familiar with the negotiations.
Blu-ray and HD exclusives aren't so exclusive overseas
The Wall Street Journal discovers an interesting loophole that's being exploited by the brave owners of HD DVD or Blu-ray disc players: apparently, some discs that are exclusive to one format in the US are available in the other format in international versions.
From Sarah McBride's story:
...Several dozen titles out in the U.S. exclusively on Blu-ray are available overseas on HD DVD. While studios like Sony, News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox and Walt Disney Co. tout their unswerving allegiance to Blu-ray stateside, in other countries titles like Sony's "xXx," Fox's "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" and Disney's "The Prestige" are available on HD DVD.
No overseas travel is necessary to tap into this stream of alternative discs. A visit to a site like amazon.co.uk does the trick, albeit typically at a higher price than in the U.S. For those reluctant to pay shipping costs from Europe or Asia or worried about currency conversions, gray-market U.S.-based sites such as xploitedcinema.com offer selections.
The loophole lies in distribution. Studios often farm out DVD sales in other countries to a patchwork of companies with expertise in those markets. Those partner companies sometimes have arrangements to use a high-definition format different from that of the U.S. studio.
Wes Anderson and Fox Use iTunes to Promote 'Darjeeling Limited'
I'm looking forward to Wes Anderson's latest, 'The Darjeeling Limited,' which opens next Friday. To promote the movie in advance of that, Anderson and Fox Searchlight are releasing a short film, 'The Hotel Chevalier,' for free on iTunes this Wednesday. (Here's the LA Times story.) Cool idea. From the Times piece:
Wes Anderson didn't set out to create one of the year's most talked about short films when he wrote, directed and produced the 13-minute "Hotel Chevalier." Instead, the quirky, creative force behind such films as "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" intended the short as a kind of prequel or "introduction" to his comedic road drama, "The Darjeeling Limited," which lands in theaters Oct. 5.
As he envisaged it, "Chevalier" would play out like a piece of short fiction while "Darjeeling" would unspool like a novel. "I like short stories," Anderson said by phone from Paris. "I like the form. And I liked the idea of a short film as a companion piece to a movie."
In fact, he shot "Chevalier" in late 2005 -- around the time he had begun drafting the "Darjeeling" screenplay with Jason Schwartzman and his cousin Roman Coppola and nearly a year before that movie went into production -- making the shorter film a kind of working draft for the feature.
Why is it so talked about? At least in part because it contains Natalie Portman's first nude scene....
Update: You can download the movie here. (Assuming you have iTunes.)
...The decision by NBC Universal highlights the escalating tension between Apple and media companies, which are unhappy that Apple will not give them more control over the pricing of songs and videos that are sold on iTunes.
NBC Universal is also seeking better piracy controls and wants Apple to allow it to bundle videos to increase revenue, the person familiar with the matter said.
NBC Universal is the second major iTunes supplier recently to have a rift with Apple over pricing and packaging matters. In July, the Universal Music Group of Vivendi, the world’s biggest music corporation, said it would not renew its long-term contract with iTunes. Instead, Universal Music said it would market music to Apple at will, which would allow it to remove its songs from iTunes on short notice.
Better piracy controls? You mean you want a tougher DRM than FairPlay? That's smart.
Of course, by December, we'll all have forgotten entirely about iTunes and will be slurping up digital content from Hulu.com, the NBC/Fox joint venture.
NBC and Fox take just ten months to come up with a name: Hulu
The Fox/NBC joint venture to create a video site that will rival YouTube may actually launch before everyone forgets what YouTube was.
They picked a name today -- Hulu -- only ten months after the joint venture talks began. A trial will begin in October, but you can sign up now.
I predict this will be every bit as successful as Movielink.com, the site we all download movies from.
I'll certainly remember the name Hulu, because it rhymes with Sulu, as in Lieutenant. (Unfortunately, Viacom, which owns 'Star Trek,' isn't participating in the joint venture.)
Google Video Abandons the Cash Register ... While 'NewCo' Raises Coin
- Google is admitting that its strategy for selling and renting videos was a flop, closing down the cash register at Google Video.
The three biggest problems: Google never had a wide range of content for purchase. Google invented its own DRM system, so videos wouldn't play anywhere but Google's site. Google didn't let independent creators sell their content - only big media companies. And Google didn't promote the paid content; it was extremely tough to find.
And for some dumb reason, consumers will no longer be able to play purchased videos. You're telling me that Google, which spends about $1 billion on employee lunches every day, couldn't keep the necessary software up and running - to do right by the people who supported this service while it existed?
I still believe that people will pay for excellent content online. Google just made too many mistakes with this initiative.
- The NY Times reports that Providence Equity Partners is investing $100 million to buy 10 percent of the Fox/NBC video site that hasn't yet been named or launched yet. This values a company with no Web site, no viewers, and no revenue (but access to content from Fox and NBC) at $1 billion.
- And here's a bonus link, from yesterday's Times: a great piece on how comedians are using Web video to build an audience and generate interest among agents, networks, and studios.
Reverse product placement: Fictional brands in the real world
The Journal has a great piece today about product placement strategy for 'The Simpsons' movie, out tomorrow. Instead of putting real-world brands into the movie (which would've seemed strange), Fox has negotiated to put Simpsons brands (like Buzz Cola and KrustyO's) into the real world. They've turned twelve 7-11 stores in the US and Canada into Kwik-E-Marts. From the story:
The ploy stems from a decision by creators of "The Simpsons" not to portray actual products or brands when the show debuted 18 years ago, according to Denise Sirkot, a producer on the television show and the executive vice president and chief financial officer of Gracie Films, which produced the movie. "We never do placements for creative reasons," she says. "The creative is always driven by the story and that's a standard we established from the beginning, and our promotional partners respect that."
In fact, they've shown their willingness to navigate their real products around the fictional brands of the Simpsons' hometown of Springfield. That's why 7-Eleven stores around the country, for instance, are selling not only Squishees, but also the cola, comic books and cereal brands of the Simpsons' world.
"If we worked to place a product in the movie, a consumer sees it for a few seconds," says Doug Foster, vice president of marketing and chief marketing officer at 7-Eleven Inc., a unit of Japan's Seven & I Holdings Co. "But if we turn it around, a store within the movie comes to life. And then people are making a choice to come to 7-Eleven."
- I found this story in today's NY Times fascinating: studios actually send screeners of new movies to the Web site MrSkin.com, to promote new releases that have nudity in them. From the story:
“The movie companies aren’t stupid,” [CEO Jim] McBride said. “I’m a guest on radio shows at least 300 times a year as the expert on celebrity nudity in film. If I’m on the radio talking about a movie like ‘Ask the Dust,’ and telling guys, ‘You’ve got to check it out: Salma Hayek has a full-frontal at the 33-minute mark,’ it’s going to make guys want to rent or buy the movie.”
More than 75 movie companies — including Universal, Fox, Paramount and Lionsgate — regularly send advance DVDs to Mr. McBride’s company. And his subscribers buy hundreds of DVDs every day, said Brian Sokel, director of marketing at TLAvideo.com, which sells DVDs on the site. (He declined to provide precise figures.)
Mr. Sokel finds nothing untoward about selling a film solely on nudity.
“That’s why filmmakers and Hollywood put sex scenes in movies — because it sells,” Mr. Sokel said. “People have a problem with raw or open sexuality, but for our company and for Mr. Skin, it doesn’t have to be a demonized concept. This is normal; you’re not a freak for wanting to see a Hollywood star in a film be naked.”
I wonder if the actresses in those scenes find this kind of niche marketing a little unseemly...
- The Times also has a piece about a new area on The Daily Reel that's intended to be a place for content creators and companies that need content to mingle.
Tuesday Links: Blockbuster's New CEO ... Grouper Becomes Crackle ... DVD Still On Top ... 'Simpsons' ... Digital Cinema ... YouTube Ads ... And More
Catching up here: Some news from the weekend, and Monday:
- The NY Times writes about how Blockbuster's new CEO will compete with Netflix, video-on-demand, and the TiVo/Unbox combination. From the piece:
“The opportunity for Blockbuster is to provide true total access whether in the form of physical stores or mail delivery or digital distribution,” [James] Keyes said. “The goal for Blockbuster would be to be the preferred provider in whatever venue is preferred by the customer.”
- Grouper, the Sony-owned vid-sharing site, is now Crackle. And they're now paying video-makers. Not just any videomaker. But chosen videomakers. This is very similar to what AtomFilms has been doing for a few years now. From the NY Times story:
Other sites have tried this approach. Revver, for example, promised to share advertising revenue with video producers, but foundered. Sony will instead offer upfront cash payments to some producers. These will range from a few thousand dollars to well over $10,000 a segment, Mr. Feltzer said. That is somewhat more than some other sites, like Heavy.com, that have been paying for video segments.
Sony has created a unit called Crackle Studios, with 15 employees, that will produce its own segments for the site. One example is Judgment Day, a reality show in which a person judges other people, then interviews them to find out if their first impressions were correct.
Crackle will also invite submissions from users, and all of them will be posted unless they violate the site’s terms of service. But since the user videos are meant to be added to Crackle’s existing channels, Mr. Feltzer said he hoped they would be in the spirit of the site.
People who submit unsolicited videos will not be paid, but they can try to submit ideas to get financing from Crackle for future projects.
- Fox isn't doing advance screenings of 'The Simpsons' movie for critics, according to the LA Times. The studio says that it isn't because the movie is bad (the traditional reason for withholding movies from reviewers), but rather to thwart Internet scoops and spoilers.
- The Economist has a short overview piece on digital cinema, circa July 2007.
- Anne Thompson has a brilliant piece in Variety about the evolving relationship between celebs and their fans. A snippet:
The dynamic between celebrities and their audience is shifting. The critics and the media no longer have the last word. Thanks to evolving technology, moviemakers and stars have new weapons to not only promote their projects directly to moviegoers, but to fight back against what they perceive as misinformation. They are taking advantage of their Internet fanbases to promote their projects, skipping the marketing middlemen and interacting directly with the people who buy tickets. Fan sites offer them valuable feedback about what their audiences like and dislike. But they also offer an opportunity to set the record straight. And sometimes, change the world.
- Here's what the new video ad format on YouTube (or at least one of them) looks like:
Monday Links: Fox Enlists Indie Band to Help Promote 'Live Free or Die Hard' ... Sequels Sag ... Hollywood and the iPhone ... More
- First Fox asked the band Guyz Nite to pull a music video from YouTube, since it used clips from the first three 'Die Hard' movies without permission. Now, they've paid the band to repost the video as a promo for the next movie in the series, 'Live Free or Die Hard.' (Video appears below.)
This is an example of how studios will increasingly rely on fans to promote their movies to niche audiences online. The big issue is, things will get chaotic as studios seek to pull some videos that they don't like, while promoting those they do. You'll hear that conflict in the quote from the Fox spokesman below.
Maria Aspan writes:
“It’s a testament to the way that fan-based culture works,” Jim Marsh, 28, who uses the stage name Guy Manley as the band’s lead singer, said in a telephone interview on Saturday. “Creating a viral video is something that’s incredibly difficult. It’s really the people that are the most passionate who succeed.”
On Friday night, Mr. Marsh and the band’s four other members attended the Radio City Music Hall premiere of the new “Die Hard” film, at the invitation of Fox. (The Guyz Nite members rented a limousine and showed up in costume as their band characters.) Yesterday, they were scheduled to tape an interview for possible inclusion with their video on the “Live Free or Die Hard” DVD.
“We aggressively protect our intellectual property, but look for, welcome and support creative voices on the Internet, and in this case we really liked what they had done and we supported it,” Chris Petrikin, a spokesman for Fox, said in an e-mail message. “We felt it would be a win-win if we approached the band and worked with them to make the video official and above board so that we could help to promote it.”
The iPhone doesn’t go on sale until Friday, but Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, is already changing the perception of the mobile phone, from a quick way to call a friend to a hip, media-friendly device. In doing so, he has forced mobile phone and Hollywood executives to react by chasing hungrily after the newest thing or face being left behind.
- Finally, here's an MP3 podcast I recorded recently for the guys at FreshDV, mostly dealing with alternative distribution options for film- and video-makers.
Direct to DVD Releases Getting Some Respect ... Squabbles Over 3-D Release Dates
- The Wall Street Journal has a good piece about studios planning more direct-to-DVD releases, relying on solid tie-ins to other movies and clever marketing. Merissa Marr writes:
Direct-to-DVD has shaken off much of the stigma of its early days. Once considered a dumping ground for movies that weren't good enough for theatrical release, it is becoming a place that top-flight filmmakers are considering taking their projects. With studios curtailing the number of feature films they are releasing, direct-to-DVD is a low-risk way to extend franchises and increase profit.
"It's not the biggest part of the market, but it's the most important slice of home entertainment today due to the enormous growth potential for each studio," says Amir Malin, a managing principal at the media investment fund Qualia Capital, who oversaw such early DVD hits as "Barbie" in his previous role as a studio executive.
Still, it's a crowded market -- the number of direct-to-DVD titles has grown from around 430 in 2004 to about 630 last year, according to Adams Media Research. One of the keys is clever marketing. With that in mind, Warner brought in marketing expert Diane Nelson to run Warner Premiere. Ms. Nelson came from global brand management, where she was responsible for the studio's big-budget "Harry Potter" franchise, among other things.
One interesting idea mentioned is Warner Bros. plan to do a direct-to-DVD release called 'Get Smarter' that will come out 10 days after 'Get Smart,' starring Steve Carell, is released to theaters.
- DreamWorks and Fox are already sparring over Memorial Day 2009: each studio wants to release a 3-D movie that weekend. Fox's is James Cameron's 'Avatar'; DreamWorks' is the animated 'Monsters vs. Aliens.' The LA Times writes:
The nation's largest exhibitors...say they won't have room for both. As many as 5,000 screens are expected to be equipped to show 3-D movies by 2009, up from 700 today. But DreamWorks and Fox each want all of them. DreamWorks Animation Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, who has been campaigning to get theater operators to accelerate the conversion to 3-D, has told people that he needs 6,000 screens for "Monsters vs. Aliens."
"I would not want to be put in the position of choosing one over the other," said Mike Campbell, CEO of Regal Entertainment Group, the nation's largest theater chain. "I want both — just not on the same day."
CinemaTech focuses on how new technologies are changing cinema - the way movies get made, discovered, marketed, distributed, shown, and seen. (With occasional forays into other parts of the entertainment economy.) You can also follow CinemaTech on Twitter (@ctechblog).
For about the last ten years, I've been writing about innovation for publications like the Boston Globe, the New York Times, Wired, Variety, Fast Company, the Hollywood Reporter, Salon.com, BusinessWeek, and Newsweek.
I helped start (and continue to help run) three conferences: Future Forward, the Nantucket Conference on Entrepreneurship & Innovation, and Convergence: The Life Sciences Leaders Forum. I also often speak and moderate at other people's conferences, and serve as a commentator on TV and radio. (Which beats actual work.)
You can reach me by e-mailing kirsner - at- pobox.com. My personal site is www.scottkirsner.com.
