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This floating movie theater in Thailand, is made out of recycled materials.

Accessible only by boat, the theater seats around 60 people. It must be amazing to be sitting out over the water, in the Gulf of Thailand at night and watching a film here.

Floating Cinema, Thailand

Floating Movie Theatre

Floating Cinema, Thailand

Floating Movie Theatre

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Marvel Infographic - Hulk was originally Grey & other stuff you never knew.

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It is looking like “The Avengers” will be the first movie ever to haul in US$200m in a single weekend. “Hulk, smash”.

The Avengers pulled in US$151.5m internationally over the weekend, to bring its total to US$441.5m since opening a week earlier than the North American market. This was a smart more, I am struggling to recall a film that opened internationally before the North American premier. I am sure having this global release strategy will see piracy numbers down, revenue up.

“Super Hero” films just aren’t my cup of tea. Though I probably will make an exception and go see what all the hype is about.

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Is Hollywood finally getting the fact that, piracy is a direct result of not having a global theatrical release?

Avengers is out now in New Zealand! We usually have to wait a year after the US premier, to see any major “Blockbuster”.

I am then reminded that Cabin in the Woods does not even have a release date for New Zealand yet. They do not have to go with a Theatrical release, I would be happy to be able to see it on a VOD platform. Not wait 6 months until it goes straight to DVD. Surely in that 6 month window the amount of illegal downloads will be huge. If the film was available now on a VOD platform for $9.00 it would sell very well here, instead it is 6 months of lost sales, increased illegal downloads and waning interest in the film – we have the technology it’s called geo-blocking. It’s not Rocket Surgery.

So, to answer my own question. “Kind of, but not yet”.

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With 4K being the big buzz word of the 2012 NAB Show – You would think a non-4K camera would really struggle to make an impact, right? Well think again.

Enter the new Blackmagic Cinema Camera – for $2,995. This price includes DaVinci Resolve and UltraScope – So you are getting around $1K worth of software with your purchase.

I would go as far to say this is my winner from the show. Blackmagic not only has positioned itself as extremely affordable, they have made a product that looks amazing. It looks to me like they have followed apples lead and created a very simple interface, along with not following the traditional form factor you would expect in a “hand held camera”.

Black Magic Cinema Camera

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Straight from Blackmagic’s marketing pitch: “Blackmagic Cinema Camera gives your work that timeless feature film look!”

Features

• Cool looking, machined aluminum chassis.
• Compatibility with quality EF and ZE mount lenses – You can use the lenses you already own.
• 2.5K image sensor with a wide 13 stops of dynamic range for a true digital film camera.
• LCD touchscreen.
• Built-in metadata entry so your files include information compatible with popular editing software.
• Built-in SSD Recorder – 2.5K uncompressed CinemaDNG RAW 12-bit capture as well as Apple ProRes and Avid DNxHD compressed video formats.

Included with the Camera
Sun shield, power supply, carry strap, UltraScope waveform monitoring software and a full version of DaVinci Resolve Software.

If I had a $3K budget to spend on a Camera – This is where my money would go…. I did have $3K to spend on a camera when I arrived in Vegas, but that was 2 days ago.

Thanks to Ben Woollen, from Chasing Time Productions for telling me to check out the Blackmagic booth.

Blackmagic Booth at NAB Show

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Photos from the Canon, GoPro and Red booths at NAB Show 2012 Las Vegas.

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I was all set to see James Cameron talk about 3D. However, not that keen, that I would stand in a 4 person wide, 200 people deep line for 30 minutes, so instead of that report, you get this….

Meet The Digital Content Buyers

Meet The Digital Content Buyers.

Niko Chauls, Director of Original programming at msn.
Tim Wesley, Head of Programming, Blockbuster.
Anna Robertson, Head of Yahoo Studios, Yahoo!

The overview stated that the panelist would be discussing; the challenges of finding or creating the right content for your platform. Identifying the type of content they have on their wish list.

Sounded good – but I ended up with the feeling, that they do not really care about Indie Film and would rather move toward producing their own internal content, around niche audiences.

Niko Chauls, MSN: Niko was the best of the 3 speakers by far.

He explained that MSN’s content strategy is focusing more on original content. They are moving from being an aggregator and licensing content, to original programming.

He did admit that he and other panelists did not know much. He said “this is a new space, what’s true today, may not be true tomorrow. There are so many changes that you as producers and content creators should not seek answers from us, as we do not know. Its all new freaky crazy medium”. (or something like that, I was typing on an iPad so that might not be an exact quote).

He strongly believes that X-box Kinect has the potential to fundamentally change the way we tell stories. They want to push forward with an Open SDK and really involve developers in this exciting new territory.

Anna Robertson, Yahoo!
Yahoo are focusing on Event experiences. They are also strongly targeting Female and Comedy content. She stated that the Digital audience is discerning and will quickly tell you when you get it wrong. Like Niko she agrees the landscape is rapidly evolving “The space is transforming right before our eyes”.

Yahoo are seeing Tablet consumption at 1/3rd of all views, on many of their clips.

It seems for Yahoo that long form content to them is 7minutes.

Tim Wesley, Blockbuster.

Poor old Tim, got asked 1 question from the Moderator, then was never spoken to or heard from again. Actually I do not even think he got asked a question – This might have just been his introduction.

Blockbuster Digital has a broad depth of content. With over 100,000 movies. They are working on creating transactional VOD abilities inside of Facebook. Along with having the Blockbuster locker, accessible from any Blockbuster app across devices.

Do you want to get your film, short or web series picked up by MSN or Yahoo? Do not hold your breath.

The takeaways here were; MSN rarely purchase programming or acquire smaller Indie Films, both seem to be moving away from licensing.

On the flip side they stated that the barrier to entry is low. However to attract their attention you need big proof before they would look at it.

Pitching to Yahoo
If you still want to pitch your concept or content to Yahoo!, then use this dedicated Pitch email address pitches@yahoo-inc.com.

The best way would be to find an entry point or introduction via a Yahoo staff member. So if you know someone that works there, a friend of a friend even, then reach out. By using this direct channel you will get past the initial gatekeeper and email spam filters.

“A List” talent or no “A list” talent

Differing opinions here; MSN has more success not dealing with “A List” talent. Niko mentioned that the ability to sell advertising to brands makes little difference, with our without celebrity.

Yahoo seemed to be more leaning towards having a Celebrity aspect to their content (typical).

Other Takeaways

One of the panelist said “There will be over 230 million smart TV devices by 2014.” I am not 100% sure who said this, leaning toward Niko Chauls, as he said most of the good stuff.

The advertising landscape is changing rapidly and there is huge demand from advertisers for advertising on digital content. 2 years ago it was difficult to even  convince a brand of the value of a Facebook like.

I was going to follow this talk up with the International distribution of movies and television panel this was on directly after. However we were made to leave the theater and line up again, I don’t do long queues

Whatever it takes to get the story.

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4k - do you really need it?

4K seems to be the big buzz word at NAB Show. But should you buy into the buzz?

Studies undertaken by NHK Science & Technical Research Laboratories show no perceptible difference between 2k and 4k at 3x screen height and beyond.

Most audience members will not know the difference. So before you blow the budget on the latest camera. Ask yourself are you doing this to keep up with the joneses? do you really need it? will it really make or break your film?

I only brought an iPad because I wanted to look as cool as the guys in Vegas, who wear their sunglasses indoors and at night.

4K (for now) is overkill – here are some other issues you need to think about:

• File sizes and data storage.
• Forget doing anything on-line.
• Only 1 out of 1000 people will notice any visual difference.
• Are you even showing your film on a 4k projector?

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I am calling false advertising America. Feeling tired I wandered the halls looking for a place to rest, a couch or chair. I see a sign that says “Restroom”, brilliant, I need a rest and here is a room just for my needs, I might even get a bed…. Urinals, toilets, no bed, no area for resting. Why call a toilet a restroom?

Technology Summit on Cinema:
Keynote; A Change Is Gonna Come – In Fact, It’s Here
Christopher McGurk

I was late to this, missed the first 10 minutes, so maybe that first part was good.

This was basically a product demo by Cinedigm Digital Cinema Corp’s CEO. They offer Digital Cinema software along with a digital theatrical distribution platform. He managed to pack in an impressive amount of buzz words per sentence – I think he even used “synergy” (like a boss).

Key message was, that they want to change the Cinema culture and progress them towards being more like TV Channels. With “Narrowcast” (narrowcast was his word) content. According to Chris, Cinemas are on average less then 5% filled mid week. So the idea is to show highly targeted content to niche audiences. Think Thomas the tank engine shows in 3D playing at 11:00am and targeted at kids and stay home parents.

Another point raised is that Ancillary revenue for films is 2-15% the value of the box office. So they are looking at a more distributed approach around releases of films; Short theater run, get on as many VOD platforms as possible.

I just cannot see many theaters embracing “Cinema 2.0″ in regards to becoming a TV Channel. But I do actually think the idea has merit and could work for the right content and audience. Though there will be a heap of trial and error before all sides get the model right.

Cinedigm believe that there is huge value in Indie Content – but I question who sees most of that value, as by the sounds of it you (the filmmaker) would make nothing on the Theatrical side, but get a cut of the VOD sales. Theatrical release acting more like a momentum builder/advertising for your VOD sales.

Cinedigm’s last 2 film acquisitions, both won audience choice awards at Sundance and SXSW. So it looks like, unless you get your film selected for one of these festivals and get an audience choice award, then do not hold your breath. But that’s a good thing, as you can control your sales and your profit on www.indiereign.com

I think companies like Cinedigm are making a change and shaking up the industry a bit. However I still feel that Indie Filmmakers kind of get left out in the rain, while being used as a bit of an experiment.

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