How Your Film is Like the Palm Pre, But Not Like the iPhone

This story in today's NY Times about movie marketing got me thinking... in particular, there's one great quote at the end that I'll share in a second.

Most people making a movie imagine that they're like Steve Jobs and the iPhone. When they're done, they're going to exit the editing suite, unveil their wonderful film, and have the world suddenly care about it: film festivals will want to be the first to premiere it, theaters will be falling all over themselves to show it, and eventually, cable networks will want the rights to play it and consumers will be lining up to buy the DVD.

Isn't that how things always work for Steve Jobs and Apple? The merest hint that they're going to release a new product brings the entire media world scurrying to the company's doorstep.

But it just doesn't work that way for most filmmakers.

Instead, you ought to look at what Palm is doing with its new smartphone, the Pre (it'll go on sale next month.)

Palm started building up anticipation for the phone in January, with some very limited demos at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that led to glowing reviews. It has been building up anticipation: software developers say it's easy to create apps for the Pre, and tech publications have been evaluating its features and wondering how it will compare to the iPhone. Essentially, this is a product that has had six months of steady build up in advance of its release -- and a lot of marketing work on Palm's part.

That's the kind of work many indie filmmakers (and some studios, too) fail to do for a new movie. People ought to know it's coming, have a sense for what it's about, be excited about it, and have had opportunities to get involved with it ... all well before the release date.

Here's the quote from today's NY Times story:

“One of the biggest differences between movie marketers and consumer brand marketers involves timing,” said Richard Ingber, president of marketing at Alcon Entertainment. “Films have a very narrow window in which to succeed,” he said. “Products are designed to gain momentum while they live on the shelf.”

That's a great insight. Products like the Pre, even with all their advance hype, don't have a week or two to succeed. They'll sit in phone stores for months or years waiting for consumers to discover them. That's not true of films -- and it's why a pre-release marketing strategy is incredibly important.

iPhone App Helps You Manage Film Consumption

Noah Harlan writes to let us know about his new Film Calculator application for the iPhone. It costs $2.99. What does it do?

Length & Time Converter: This function allows the user quickly convert length to time and vice versa for a variety of film stocks and speeds. Choose from Super-8mm, 16mm, 35mm or 70mm stocks and preset frames per second rates (12, 24, 25, 48) or enter your own. Then enter the time and you'll get the length or enter the length and you'll get the time.

Hard Drive Storage Calculator: Select a format and enter a time and this function will tell you how much hard drive storage space you need. Dozens of formats are included. Contact us to request more!

Script Supervisor's Assistant: This function provides a stopwatch that counts both time and length. Select the stock and frame rate and then operate this like a regular stopwatch. Saves scripty's from having to use a calculator at the end of each take. Always know exactly how much you've shot on a reel!

Is it funny (or just realistic) that there's an iPhone app to help you manage your analog film consumption?

Reviewing the new Vudu movie box ... Comparing the iPhone with the new iPods

- David Pogue of the NY Times has a favorable review of Vudu, a new set-top box for delivering movies over an Internet connection. I've seen Vudu in action, and the image quality is pretty sweet - but even sweeter is the fact that a movie starts playing as soon as you select it. Right now, Vudu offers 5,000 movies, and they hope to quickly expand to 10,000. And every major studios has supplied at least a few titles.

Pogue's caveats:

Vudu’s dependence on the notoriously conservative, profit-driven movie studios also explains many of its frustrating inconsistencies. Some Vudu movies are available for purchase or rent; others, only for purchase. Some movies have previews (movie trailers); others do not. The list includes hundreds of movies from some studios (Paramount, Sony, Warner) and only a handful from others (Disney).

While we’re nit-picking, it’s worth noting that Vudu offers no DVD extras — deleted scenes, subtitles and so on. Be prepared, too, for a less obvious loss: serendipity. With other movie sources, the limited selection or the wait for the mail carrier can provide a moment of happy surprise when you find something good or open the mailing envelope. Vudu is more like shooting fish in a barrel.

Here's the Vudu Web site, and a Variety piece I wrote last month that talks about Vudu and a competitor, Building B.

- Video guru Anthony Burokas has been wondering whether Apple's new iPods, unveiled yesterday, will be better than the company's iPhone for filmmakers who want to tote around their demo reels. Here's his analysis.

Illegally posted YouTube vids now appearing on iPhone

Seems that among the 10,000 videos YouTube has specially-encoded for viewing on the iPhone are a few that were posted to YouTube illegally, including some soccer highlights and clips from Turner Broadcasting's Adult Swim.

This blog entry explores the legal implications of that.

No Flash for iPhone Users ... Peter Jackson Bids Farewell to the Original Alamo Drafthouse ... Ken Burns Wants You ... And More

- For some reason, that fancy new iPhone won't play video in Adobe's popular Flash format. (All of the YouTube videos that you can watch on the phone have been re-encoded into h.264, the video format Apple prefers.)

- Courtesy of Anne Thompson's blog, here's a video farewell from Peter Jackson and Edgar Wright to the original Alamo Drafthouse, in Austin, TX. An "improved" Drafthouse will open in September, in a different location.

- Ken Burns is asking citizen documentarians to go out and interview World War II vets for the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress. Here's how you can participate.

- The Wall Street Journal makes note of 'Four Eyed Monsters' on YouTube; the full film remains there until August 15th.

Two iPhone pieces from Variety

I was hoping to avoid contributing to the orgy of iPhone hype this week, and in fact have summarily been deleting PR pitches that begin, "If you're planning to write about the iPhone..." I got at least a half-dozen of those.

But I failed.

I spent this afternoon working on a piece for Variety about what the iPhone means for media companies and content creators, which is here. I hope it's sufficiently skeptical...since I try to hold Apple's feet to the fire for operating a closed-loop system with the iTunes Store and the iPhone/iPod.

From the piece:

If the phone is a hot seller, that could nudge more media companies to do deals with Steve Jobs' company -- or find a way to circumvent the tight link Apple has forged between its devices and iTunes, its online media marketplace.

Apple's newest product will play a selection of 10,000 free videos from YouTube, as well as video podcasts offered for free on iTunes from outlets like CNN and HBO, plus movies and TV shows sold on iTunes by suppliers such as Disney, Lionsgate, NBC and ABC.

But like the video iPod before it, the device won't play content sold by sites including Amazon Unbox, Movielink or CinemaNow, which offer movies in a Windows Media format that Apple doesn't support. Apple also doesn't allow content marketplaces other than the iTunes Store to sell content "wrapped" in Apple's FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) technology. That restrictive policy guarantees Apple a high degree of loyalty among iPod and iPhone users but has recently brought scrutiny from European Union regulators.

There's another piece, by Michael Schneider, about how everyone in LA is coveting an iPhone as the new status symbol.

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.”

- Speaking of sequels, the Wall Street Journal says that the 'Third Time's No Charm for Summer Blockbusters.'

- From the NY Times: 'Hollywood Seeks Ways to Fit its Content into the Realm of the iPhone.' Laura Holson's lead:

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.

iPhone Will Offer 10,000 YouTube Vids

That's the latest news to get iPhone fans salivating. From the release:

...YouTube has begun encoding their videos in the advanced H.264 format, and iPhone will be the first mobile device to use the H.264-encoded videos. Over 10,000 videos will be available on June 29, and YouTube will be adding more each week until their full catalog of videos is available in the H.264 format this fall.

Before this, Verizon had been the only mobile carrier making YouTube vids available on its phones. (AT&T is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone...for now.) Apple is only recommending that you download YouTube videos, though, when your iPhone is connected to a WiFi network, since download speeds when connected to AT&T's network will be slooooow.

And if all this iPhone hype is getting to be too much, here's the Onion on even more cool things that iPhone can do.

First Feature Film on YouTube: 'Four-Eyed Monsters' (and more Saturday news)

- The first (legal) feature film is up on YouTube, all 70 minutes of it. The experiment involves YouTube, the online filmfan community Spout.com, and `Four-Eyed Monsters' directors (and stars) Susan Buice and Arin Crumley.

Here's how it works -- watching the film is free, but before it plays, you get a one-minute message from Susan and Arin explaining that if you go join sign up for Spout.com, the site will pay them $1 for every new member they bring in, up to $100,000. Susan and Arin also ask viewers to post any video responses to the film on YouTube, and promise that they'll interact with viewers there for the next week. (Update: film will stay on YouTube for just one week.)

So this is basically a "bounty" business model, with an underwriter (Spout) promising the filmmakers a bounty for new members they can bring in. 'Four-Eyed Monsters,' of course, has already been on the festival circuit, already played theaters, and is already available for purchase as a DVD or a DRM-free digital download.

I'm embedding the film below. This is the first time you'll hear, on YouTube, the words "and now, the feature presentation..." (But probably not the last.)

Here's the official press release.

- The Visual Effects Society is holding its 2007 Festival of Visual Effects in Beverly Hills this weekend. If you can't make it in person, their list of the 50 greatest visual effects films of all time is well worth a look (here it is in PDF form. As is the teaser video with clips from many of the movies. I love the mix of classic films and recent ones...

The Wall Street Journal has a piece about the VES' top 50 list, in which Joe Morganstern writes:

Special effects don't have to be big to be special. The vast -- and vastly expensive -- motion-capture process behind "Polar Express" (a film wisely omitted from the VES 50/51 list) largely failed to capture emotions, and not just in the case of the glove-puppet-like faces; even the train of the title seemed inert. Yet the fleeting apparition of an almost incandescent train in Steven Spielberg's remake of "War of the Worlds" is a stunning effect, because the train represents escape from fearful danger. In Atom Egoyan's "The Sweet Hereafter," a film set in a town that has lost its children in a bus accident, the depiction of the bus plunging from a road into an icy river is technically modest, and visually removed; the whole thing is seen in extreme long shot. Yet it's anything but remote. The moment is, in fact, shattering, because we're watching what we're watching, a school bus with its precious cargo slowly sinking beneath a sheet of ice.

Looking at it another way, the more we bring to special effects, the more special they become. Heavy-duty digital genius wasn't needed for the moment at the end of John Boorman's "Excalibur" when the sword is flung back in the lake and received by a hand which, rising above the waters, submerges once again. For many of us, that image epitomizes the Arthurian legend (and maybe even evokes "Camelot," Richard Harris, Richard Burton, Lerner and Loewe and JFK.) Similarly, the effects in Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" are, by the filmmaker's choice, almost homespun -- a few digital creatures and embellishments, yes, but also puppets, painted sets and a monster who, quite discernibly, is an actor wearing a fantastical costume. Yet the cumulative effect is intense, for all of these excursions from literalism are part of a seamless whole that uses reality as a starting point. The end point, and the whole point, is magic.

- Could Amazon be mulling a purchase of Netflix? BusinessWeek.com looks at the possibility, noting:

Amazon could potentially address some of Netflix's subscriber-growth troubles by marketing the service to its large user base. It could also seek to improve [Amazon's download service] Unbox by combining it with Netflix's download service—should that model begin gaining significant traction with consumers.

- Another great BizWeek piece asks, How Big Will the iPhone Be?