Those Crazy Cutting Edge Japanese Kids and Their…Rubber Stamps?

Lots of blogs have been posting the video below of a young Japanese girl going absolutely insane when she meets Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliff on the set of the last film.

What I thought was most fascinating about the video was a tiny detail: at around the 4:00 mark, the girl gives Daniel a present that turns out to be a rubber stamp embossed with the Japanese character for her name.

Considering the Japanese love for all things techie, it was surprising to me to see that this decidedly old-world object would be the special gift to an apparent idol.

I also think it is one of many signs that points to a wonderful duality in many of today’s youth – a desire for the ephemeral joys of text messaging and for the more permanent marks that they can leave on the world and on each other.

Watchitoo Has One Great Use. Home Movies.

A new website currently in beta, Watchitoo is a web video site with a twist:

What makes Watchitoo stand out is the synchronized experience. Users watch media and each other, via webcams, at the same time in one browser-based interface. They also can share control of the screen, rather than being restricted to one presenter controlling the content as with a webinar/demo situation. LINK

Now, it seems like the site is focused on groups watching various types of pro content together, like a LOST viewing party in cyberspace but I think they are missing the best market for a service of this kind.  Families and friends sharing home movies.

Think about it for a minute.  You just shot a video of you son taking his first steps.  In minutes you can have it uploaded to Watchitoo, send the link to your son’s grandparents who can jump online and then all of you can watch the video together and enjoy eachothers reactions to the video in realtime.

If this doesn’t sound like a big deal, go ask for a beta invite and try it for yourself.

I witnessed a demo of a very similar website about 18 months ago using the basic scenario I just proposed and an entire hall full of jaded webheads “ooooh”d in unison.

Pirates Don’t Hurt Wolverine Opening

If you listened to the MPAA, you would think that the leaked “Wolverine” workprint from last month was going to cause some sort of disasterous damage to the film’s potential when it was officially released to theaters this past weekend.

Instead, “Wolverine” was far-and-away the biggest movie in the US this weekend, grossing $87,000,000 making it Fox’s fourth best results ever and the biggest opening of 2009, so far.

This truly begs the question, what the hell is the MPAA so upset about?  If anything, the leaked workprint raised awareness and interest in the film.  About the only thing I can see that really hurt the film’s opening weekend was a slew of mediocre-poor reviews from the critics.

Of course, the MPAA had a fit over pirated copies of “The Dark Knight” available online and that was the highest-grossing film of 2008, so expect them to spin this whole thing to make it look like P2P file-sharers will bring down Hollywood.

LINK

RIP! Producers Offer Pay-What-You-Want Downloads

The producers of a very cool documentary called “RIP! A Remix Manifesto” faced a common dillema in the film these days.  Their investors wanted to make sure that their chances of recouping weren’t undermined by piracy and the films DVD and theatrical distributors had similar concerns.

In an interview in Wired.com the producer said something quite smart:

We knew the film would appear on file-sharing networks immediately and we knew the audience for the film wanted and expected it to be online. So knowing that, we wanted there to be a method for those who wanted to pay to do so.

So, instead of figuring out a way to limit the reach of the film or threatening to sue and prosecute potential fans and evangelists, they decided to put up a “pay-what-you-want” download of the film.

It makes so much more sense to embrace the current technology and the desire of fans to access content in a flexible manner than it does to try and handcuff your content and treat potential fans like potential criminals.

LINK

MPAA Helps Terrorists by Distracting FBI in Wolverine “Case”

Yesterday, a work print of the new X-Men movie, “Wolverine,” was released on the internet and has since been downloaded at least 100,000 times.

Of course, the studio and the MPAA are considering this the crime of the century and using all their powers to bring those responsible to “justice.” In fact, they have convinced the FBI to get involved!

Correct me if I am wrong about this but there is still a massive “war on terror” going on and, last I checked, our borders are more porous than cheesecloth.  Should the FBI really be wasting their time in a fruitless effort to close the barn door after the horse has escaped and reproduced at an exponential rate?

Aside from the fact that there is no solid proof that this sort of “piracy” has any negative impact on the ability of the film to generate revenue, isn’t really just sort of too bad for the studio?  I mean, they couldn’t control their content and it got out.  Tough.  What gives you the right to waste tax-payer money on an FBI investigation into this matter?

So, the MPAA must want the terrorists to win.  Otherwise, they wouldn’t involve the FBI in a wild goose chase that could distract them from legitimate concerns.

For those looking for their own copy of the Wolverine work print, here is a pretty solid starting point.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Piracy Puts Film Online One Month Before Open (nytimes.com)
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine film leaked online! (filmgecko.com)
• Hollywood movies set new record (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Global box office up 5.6 per cent to $28.1B US in 2008 (cbc.ca)

ABC Vs. YouTube

I love the ongoing “pissing into the wind” approach of big media in their battle against the ease and speed with which any and all content will be spread:

Looking for highlights of last night’s Oscars on YouTube? Good luck.

That’s because ABC, which broadcast last night’s show, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which produces the event, don’t want clips of last night’s show on the world’s biggest video site. Instead, they’d prefer that you watch highlights on ABC’s Oscar.com site. (via)

Aside from the fact that I was able to find a number of live streaming links of the Academy Awards last night (on of them was even on the popular Justin.tv) there are literally hundreds of clips of last night’s show on YouTube and elsewhere.

Oh, and you can also download the entire thing from any number of P2P sites.

The point is that ABC has wasted time and energy trying to protect their property instead of working with the powerful distribution forces that were going to win either way.

New York Times Helps Movie Studios Spread Lies and Fear

New York Times writers By BRIAN STELTER and BRAD STONE (full disclosure: Brad interviewed and quoted me for his article on $200 netbooks and I think he seems like a real nice guy) seem to have been drinking a bit too much of the movie industry’s KoolAid.

In an article in today’s paper they write the following:

But if media companies are winning the battle against illegal video clips, they are losing the battle over illicit copies of full-length TV episodes and films. The Motion Picture Association of America says that illegal downloads and streams are now responsible for about 40 percent of the revenue the industry loses annually as a result of piracy.

The problem here is that this 40% figure is completely mythical and the reporters neither back up this outrageous claim or offer any subtantive basis for it being made.

The truth is that Hollywood revenue was up year-to-year and there is little true corellation between rates of piracy and Hollywood profits.  The concept that every “pirated” viewing is lost revenue is simply absurd.  It is wrong to assume that people who watch something for free would be willing to pay instead if the free version were gone.

I might watch “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” on a pirate stream for a few minutes but I will not pay $12.50 to go see it on a big screen.  If the pirated version isn’t available I just won’t see the movie at all.  However, if it is a great movie I want to see on a big screen I will cough up the coin.

The overall tone of this article makes it seem like this piracy is a massive crimewave instead of a rational response to an industry that refuses to evolve with the times.  There is a reason that the studios are losing this war: they aren’t changing to meet their customer’s needs and so their customers are going elsewhere:

But many industry experts say the practice is becoming much more prevalent. “Streaming has gotten efficient and cheap enough and it gives users more control than downloads do. This is where piracy is headed,” said James L. McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research. “Consumers are under the impression that everything they want to watch should be easily streamable.”

Of course they are under that impression – it’s true.  Where studios and TV networks are losing money is by not finding ways to offer a similar service at a reasonable price.

When they do make the effort, like with Hulu.com, they see great results.  Viewership goes up immediately.

Why they don’t simply release copies to torrent sites with ads embedded is completely beyond my comprehension.  With what they waste each year trying to “fight” piracy, they could develop and distribute a new business model that would make pirating basically obsolete.

Instead, they risk going the way of the music industry and suing their way right out of business.

Meanwhile, I am baffled as to why the New York Times seems to be siding so heavily with “Big Hollywood.”

Pirates Beat Oscars Again – Suck It MPAA

Every year the MPAA claims to be doing everything in its power to stop pirates from destroying the film industry.  Of course, what they really mean is that they are wasting millions of dollars and work-hours.

Not only does there seem to be little proof that pirated downloads are actually hurting the film industry’s bottomline but the efforts of the MPAA are doing nothing to stop it:

Waxy.org’s Andy Baio has once again published an extensive collection of data about this year’s Oscar nominations and their availability on P2P networks. He’s been doing this for the last seven years, during which the overall picture has remained pretty much the same; almost all Oscar nominated movies are available on file-sharing networks before the annual awards ceremony. In fact of the 26 movies that were nominated this year, 23 are already available in DVD quality on P2P networks. (via NewTeeVee)

While this same article points out that it is taking longer for pirates to get copies to the internet, by a matter of days from year-to-year, it makes it very clear that the major studios are going to have to figure out a new approach to fighting the pirates other than chasing them around the net with “cease and desist” orders and dragging fans into court.

Maybe they should, um, take a few lessons from the pirates and begin releasing usable digital copies themselves without endless forms of DRM that cripple the end-users ability to do what they want with the movie.

Just a thought.

Related articles by Zemanta

• File sharing: more Oscar-contending pics end up online
• Pirating the 2009 Oscars
• Online Pirates vs MPAA – The 2009 Oscars
• Pirating the 2009 Oscars

DMCA Shuts Down Fansite Run By Preschool Teacher

Image via Wikipedia

On of the many super-cool niches out there on the web is the world of “fanedits.”

As defined by TorrentFreak:

“Taking famous movies as a base, faneditors spend huge amounts of time editing with sophisticated software in order to create improved or just plain different versions of existing movies. Most of the time, faneditors try to improve what is wrong or bad with a movie, using advanced techniques to create a new piece of art based on the original. Of course, faneditors love to share their work with others in the community, something the movie industry wants to bring to an end.”

Now comes word that one of the most popular sites for fans to share their edits is being shut down due to DMCA takedown requests.

Not only is it yet another absurd example of the major motion picture studios attacking the core fans they rely on for ticket sales, but, in this case, it exposed one of the horrible pirates they are trying to stop.

“I am boon23, faneditor and administrator of the biggest fanedits website in the world. I’m a preschool teacher from Europe and as faneditor I post under the name CBB (created by boon) and have so far created 29 fanedits, which is quite a lot. It is my hobby, my art, the thing I really love to do and will continue to do.”

Yup.  A preschool teacher.  Nice work, guys.  Go get ‘em!

Video Killed The Indie Film Star?

Image via Wikipedia

It wasn’t all that long ago that the way every young director hoping to make his or her mark would make a short film and send it out on the festival circuit.

Of course, that was before YouTube made online video mainstream.  First, we saw a fair number of short films online but now, it seems, more folks are going the web-series route, to various levels of success.

The excellent Tilzy.tv have posts on two such indie webseries, CATACLYSMO and THE BICYCLIST.

“The two spent $20,000 making the web show [BICYCLIST], $30,000 making the movie, and they expect total costs to rise to $100,000 all told when the movie is marketed and distributed. That’s not much for say, a venture-backed web studio, but for folks who make a web show on weekends, it’s quite a bit of cash.”

Yup, and they’ve received fewer than 500,00 views for the series.  BUT that is one hell of a lot more bang for your buck than you’ll get at a minor film festival with your short film!

These days, you’d have to be crazy to think a film fest will be your route to the big times.