Posts tagged Movie
Sony Rejects Loeb's Call To Sell Part Of Its Movie And Music Unit
May 14th
Activist shareholder Dan Loeb just called for Sony to sell up to 20% of its entertainment division, and Sony has already rejected the offer in a statement provided to USA Today. Third Point, a New York-based hedge fund managed by Loeb, owns roughly 6.5% of Sony, making it one of the company’s largest shareholders with a stake valued at $1.1 billion.
By selling 15-20% of Sony Entertainment, Loeb claimed Sony could boost the value of its shares, sharpen the company’s overall focus and help revive its consumer electronics business. (Three guesses as to which one of those Loeb cares most about.) Sony’s statement reads:
As President and CEO Kazuo Hirai has said repeatedly, the entertainment businesses are important contributors to Sony’s growth and are not for sale… We look forward to continuing constructive dialogue with our shareholders as we pursue our strategy.
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Saul Bass Google Logo Celebrates Master of Movie Title Sequences
May 8th
Today Google is honoring iconic graphic designer Saul Bass, famous for creating some of the best movie opening sequences in the late 1950s and ’60s. Here is the complete list of title sequences Google used in their Doodle.
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Google Answers Who’s That Actor In That Movie In Google Play TV App
Mar 28th
Google announced they can now tell you the name of the actors in a movie when you are unsure of the name of the actor or actress. The Google Play TV or Movies Android App specifically for U.S. based Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and higher tablet devices can give you the answer. For a [...]
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How I Saved Veronica Mars And Destroyed The Movie Industry
Mar 17th
Veronica Mars, the critically acclaimed, little-watched television show from the mid-2000‘s was dead, buried – and nearly forgotten.
I saved it. With my iPhone.
I downloaded the Kickstarter funding app from the App Store. With a swipe of a finger, and my mobile Amazon Account, I pledged $10 to help the producer finance a movie based on the show. On Twitter, I told all my followers to do the same. Then, with a quick status update to my Facebook page, I encouraged my family and friends to do the same – and tell everyone they knew to follow suit. All told, it took less than five minutes, and now one of the best network TV series of the past ten years will live again, this time on the big screen.
The new Veronica Mars movie has been greenlighted, its financing secured, the star – the lovely and talented Kristen Bell – is signed. Nothing to do now but type out a script. I should at least garner a “producer” credit. The Motion Picture Academy is welcome to thank me at next year’s Oscar ceremony.
On second thought, maybe The Academy should fear me. For I did not merely save Veronica Mars, I am leading the charge to destroy the entire film industry as we know it. My weapons? The technology I carry around with with me everyday. A smartphone, an app, cloud services, crowdfunding, social media and online payments.
Explosions In The Film Industry
The total gross film receipts in the U.S. last year were just under $11 billion. The average take of a Hollywood film was a middling $16.5 million. This does not include international box office receipts, DVD sales, streaming or network television. The world consumes massive quantities of entertainment. Yes, we have a choice in what we watch and when and where but almost no choice, no direct say whatsoever, in what actually gets made, or by whom. This has always been the case – until now.
Despite its near-universal appeal, there may be no industry that’s more insular, more inexplicable to the very public it appeals to than the film industry. Technology is changing all of this, exploding the industry outward and, finally, fully empowering those who buy the tickets. Yes, technology has radically impacted the industry itself – think amazing special effects, 3D, green screens, post-production wizardry. We can now download or stream our favorite films and TV series to watch them anywhere at any time – legally or otherwise. But until now, we were effectively powerless in what got made.
No longer. Veronica Mars will likely be only among the first of many multi-million-dollar Hollywood flicks that are produced solely because of the efforts of individuals scattered around the world, pledging anywhere from $1 and $10,000, and sharing their enthusiasm on social media. The crowd is no longer simply marketed to, but is now driving what gets made from the start.
Crowdfunding
Wikipedia defines crowdfunding as “the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.” Rob Thomas, the creator of the original Veronica Mars series, spent years attempting to turn his creation into a film. Until he turned to the crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, he failed every time. From The New York Times:
In its three seasons on the air “Veronica Mars” was never even one of television’s Top 100 most-watched series, but in its afterlife it has broken new ground. On Wednesday night fans and supporters of that show about a wisecracking young sleuth (played by Kristen Bell) pledged more than $2 million to produce a “Veronica Mars” movie, less than 12 hours after the fund-raising drive was announced on Kickstarter.
Mr. Thomas told fans they had 30 days to raise $2 million for “our shot” at producing a film, adding, “I believe it’s the only one we’ve got.” And by about 9 p.m. that goal was met, with pledges continuing to come in on Day 2.
The Web, social media, online payment services – and the always-on connectivity our smartphones provide us – are enabling an entirely new form of financing. These technologies are a;sp enabling anyone to pursue their creative vision or build a better mousetrap by appealing not to a skeptical venture capitalis or a cynical producer, but to regular people who may share a similar passion or interest. The technologies we have in our pockets are simultaneously empowering us to both create our visions and fund those whose visions.
A Funding Platform for Creative Projects
For the Veronica Mars project on Kickstarter, fans could pledge from $10 to more than $10,000, with various goodies offered at each level. For $10, the “backer” receives a PDF of the shooting script on the day of the movie’s release. For $10,000, a speaking role was offered.
Of course, Veronica Mars is a project with a built-in core of fans. Not all crowdsourced projects have that kind of juice to get to their funding goals.
But here’s how it might work: A budding young filmmaker uses her smartphone to record a two-minute ‘pitch’ that she uploads to Youtube. Enough people react positively that she makes a Kickstarter project – seeking, for example, $1 million to make her movie and another $1 million to help market it. Not easy, but it might just work – even for people who would otherwise have no shot at raising that kind of money..
Crowdfunding, cloud services and mobile devices are remaking filmmaking and film financing. But lets not stop at funding Veronica Mars. The audience still doesn’t have an financial stake in the creative endeavors we support. What if Veronica Mars turns out to be a blockbuster? Shouldn’t I get a piece of those profits? After all, I was an early financial backer.
It’s not like I’m asking to be onstage at the Oscars with Rob Thomas. Although…
Images from Veronica Mars Kickstarter project video.
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Microsoft Movie Deal Makes The Xbox ‘A Player’ – Premieres “Pulp”
Mar 4th
Table stakes in the online content industry these days is owning the rights to “exclusive” content, and Microsoft took a small step in that direction, agreeing to distribute Pulp, a “comedy about comics,” which premieres Monday on its own Xbox platform.
“Microsoft might not seem like the obvious partner for an indie comedy, but the film industry has changed,” Adam Hamdy, Pulp’s co-director, told The Telegraph. “Xbox 360 can instantly distribute Pulp to millions of UK customers, and publicize the release in ways that simply aren’t possible traditionally.”
The Competition For Content
That’s the same argument, but writ small, that online content houses like Amazon, Hulu and Netflix have chosen to try and win audiences. Netflix, of course, is shaping the future of TV by signing up shows like House of Cards, Lillyhammer, and a new season of Arrested Development – though some have speculated that Netflix should be on a deathwatch, instead. Hulu has done the same thing to a lesser extent. Amazon has also ponied up, buying the rights to the critically acclaimed television series, Justified.
And HBO, one of the first paid services to orient itself around original content, has said that more customers are tuning in to watch its original series – at least via its HBO Go application – then to watch movies. That may be because movies on HBO come and go, depending on licensing deals, while its original series – including The Sopranos, The Wire and Game of Thrones, among others, live on forever on HBO Go.
Last March, Microsoft began positioning its Xbox game console as more of a video set-top box on on the order of a Roku, with more minutes spent watching recorded movies and television content than playing games. Last year, Nielsen found that consumers spend an average of about an extra hour per week on a game console watching recorded video.
Microsoft’s recent moves are in line with that trend. In September, Microsoft hired former CBS exec Nancy Tellem to run a new Xbox content studio, although the first efforts were essentially interactive “Sesame Street” programs. Adding exclusive distribution of Pulp is a more traditional content play, something that one might expect Tellem would orchestrate with Hollywood.
Microsoft representatives did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
Content Is King, But Breadth Is Queen
The difference between Microsoft and a service like Netflix, however, is that Redmond inextricably tied to the Xbox platform; although Microsoft outsells all other game console in the world (in 2012, the company claimed more than 63 million Xbox 360s had been sold, lifetime) Netflix has vastly more distribution across Apple’s iOS and Mac platforms, plus Android phones, tablets and various set-tops like the Apple TV, Roku and WD TV boxes, among others.
For Microsoft, however, an exclusive content deal means two things: profits and cachet. Microsoft’s interactive division is forever flirting with losses (last quarter, Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division recorded a $19 million profit). Although Microsoft may in fact have paid money to license the premiere of Pulp, it’s equally likely that studios could pay Microsoft to promote their films, a strategy that the industry is beginning to see with Roku (via banner ads promoting recent films) Comcast and Cox (ditto) as well as Hulu Plus (via a carousel of promoted shows).
Microsoft may not have the clout of a Netflix, but analyst Richard Doherty of The Envisioneering Group has characterized the Xbox as the most socially connected TV platform, and Microsoft’s “second screen” Smartglass technology gives the service a technological leg up on the competition. Now, Microsoft set on expanding its Xbox from a game console to a content distribution hub. The company may be far behind its competition in that regard, but the race is far from over.
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The Google Movie — “The Internship” — Debuts Its Trailer
Feb 14th
There is a new movie coming to theaters on June 7th named The Internship. It is a comedy movie about what it is like to work at Google as an intern played by Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. The movie is about two older men who know nothing about computers who recently lose their jobs. [...]
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Seo In Guk to Make His Movie Debut Through ‘Police Family’ – Yahoo! Philippines News
Jan 17th
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Seo In Guk to Make His Movie Debut Through 'Police Family'
Yahoo! Philippines News On January 17, Seo In Guk's agency revealed he had been cast in the movie Police Family and was now adjusting his schedule for the movie's filming. Directed by Kim Jin Young, Police Family is a romantic-comedy which will center around the daughter from … |
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Why Twitter Buzz ≠ Movie Ticket Sales
Dec 20th
Most film studios operate under the assumption that the more buzz and positive sentiment a movie has on Twitter, the better the movie will perform at the box office. It ain’t necessarily so…
Instead, it’s quality over quantity. Or maybe, influencers over volume. That is the basic formula for determining what works when it comes to whether or not the number of tweets equals movie ticket sales.
As studios fork over big money for their end-of-year Oscar runs and social-media campaigns, new research by the social advertising company 140 Proof is threatening to poke a gaping hole in those marketing plans.
140 Proof looked at 25 major Hollywood films released in 2012, compiling data on each movie’s social media activity (mentions and hashtags) two weeks before, and two weeks after the release. It found that the number of overall Twitter mentions is a poor predictor of box office sales (unlike tweet volume and Television ratings). What did correlate to box office success was the number of tweets from influential tastemakers – those films had greater potential for positive revenue. In other words, just creating more overall tweets can be ineffective in getting people into theatres, unless those tweets come from people whose voices have weight.
Based on these findings, 140 Proof has partnered with Sony Pictures, Universal, AMC and HBO to analyze and forecast anticipated ticket sales and reach targeted audiences through social ads.
Not All Movie Lovers Are Created Equal
Jon Elvekrog, the chief executive of 140 Proof, says what’s really going on here is movie marketers employing the same tactics on Twitter that they’ve been using for online advertising: Aiming to reach and engage with key influencers. ”For studios that are looking at social, it comes down to making sure your efforts reach tastemakers, whether that’s through influencer programs or using targeted social ads.”
“Driving ticket sales is direct advertising,” Elvekrog said. “While movies typically aim for mass market appeal, the findings in our data showed that if you get specific influencers to talk about the movie, that conversation has more bearing on ticket sales than a massive volume of conversation from the broader market.”
Suranga Chandratillake, the founder and chief strategy officer at video search engine blinkx, thinks this model works – based on his own analysis of how blinkx monitors social channels.
“You can look at all tweets to know if your marketing is working, and you can look at influencer tweets to know if your product is working,” he said. “
Twitter Phenomenon…Or Transferable Model?
Move Marketing Is Different
So is this model specifically suited to work for films, and just on Twitter, or is there a larger message here?
Elvekrog says the tactics used for deciphering film may not be as effective for traditional marketing, but it’s a field he admits his data hasn’t focused on. Instead, he thinks the model would be perfect for predicting sales of retail items. And he thinks predicting the success of television content would fall into the same category as films (although data from Nielsen suggests that television success is more volume based, perhaps because most of it is free). A more likely use of his model is a direct link between reaching influencers to drive consumer sales, rather than increasing overall visibility.
“The tactics and approach that may work for a typical marketer, like Coke or GM to raise brand visibility, is proving not to be as effective for movie studios who need to get people to take an immediate action: Buy movie tickets,” Elvekrog said. ”Product release: Games, autos, consumer goods, we see the phenomenon being particularly transferable to any event-based promotion where you’re working within a specific timeframe,” he said.
Managing The Hype Cycle
Kelly Lux, a social media strategist at Syracuse University’s iSchool agrees that model can work for retail. But she warns that an important determining factor for success is a less controllable variable, consumer sentiment, which can make or break sales.
“This is transferable on a smaller scale to any kind of product launch that you can create hype around,” Lux said. “Sentiment is what’s important, and that can be much more difficult to parse out… Once the product lands in consumer hands it’s much more difficult for the brand to direct the sentiment the way they want.”
Chandratillake also supported this reasoning and the predictive potential of influential tweets.
“Whether you can apply this method to other industries, I think the answer is absolutely yes,” he said. ”Adoption, i.e. actual purchases or actions, a bit like the box office numbers, correlate best to tweet volume by influencers, while buzz, i.e. people being aware of the product or campaign, correlate quite well to tweet mentions in general. “
Leveraging Twitter
Elvekrog says the key to making Twitter work to drive sales is getting marketers to target the right people to help make the product known. His tip: Use the tools social-media offers.
“Awareness is huge for marketers, especially those tasked with cultivating a long-lasting brand,” he said. “Social is amazing for brand awareness, particularly when you’re incorporating social data such as Likes, Pins and Twitter followers to deliver a brand message.”
On the horizon, there’s been a lot of talk about using Twitter for stock picking. Small businesses are already doing it, so why not Wall St. firms? ETF Trends reports that investors are turning to social media over traditional news and the largest firms are working to create meaningful online relationships and communities. That could open opportunities for sentiment and analysis companies such as Boston-based Crimson Hexagon, and Indianapolis’ Fizziology.
But according to Elvekrog, it’s not the same: ”This could be because stock trading seems like it is sentiment driven when it is actually more fact driven,” Elvekrog said. “Or perhaps it is just because consumer sentiment and investing don’t have strong correlations. However, as the findings of our analysis show, consumer sentiment and consumer product acceptance are clearly correlated.”
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.
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Netflix Does Deal With Disney: The End of Flat-Rate Movie Pricing?
Dec 4th
Tuesday morning, Deathwatch-favorite Netflix announced a new partnership with Disney. While the financial terms have yet to be disclosed, this looks like a huge step in the right direction for the embattled video service.
Under the terms of the agreement, Netflix will become the online distribution platform for Disney’s straight-to-video releases in 2013. In 2016, it will carry pay-per-view versions of Disney’s new, theatricallyreleased films. Effective immediately, Netflix will also have access to a back catalog of classic Disney films for its current subscriber base.
What It Means For Disney
By cutting a deal, Disney gains a pay-per-view foothold (and likely some perks to be named later) in the biggest online video distributor without giving up anything but Dumbo and Pocahontas. Its classic freebies will serve as a powerful lead-in for up-sells, and it will retain the power to charge a fee it considers fair for premium content. The deal also draws considerable leverage from cable operators that may have been less willing to negotiate a favorable revenue split.
What It Means For Netflix
The Disney deal is a major lifeline for Netflix. First, it brings reliable, popular content into the system right now, repairing some of the actual and perceived damage caused when Disney/Starz pulled out. It also shows Wall Street and other content providers that Netflix will be around for the long haul. If the mother of all content licensing providers is willing to do a deal, other suppliers are more likely to want in as well. It remains to be seen how far Disney has locked out competitors, but Netflix will draw new interest that it really needed.
The agreement also formalizes what everyone knew was coming: Netflix is evolving beyond the buffet model. Premium content will remove the pressure from the baseline offering and allow all sorts of new opportunities that provide legitimate value.
For example, millions of Netflix users catch up on back seasons of still-running TV shows, only to find themselves stuck in the limbo between the Netflix catalog and the current season. That’s a well-qualified sales opportunity sitting on the table. Now Netflix and content publishers can monetize that opportunity while consumers willing to spend a bit extra on a premium subscription or an a la carte purchase can stay up to date on their favorite shows.
This deal puts pressure on other video distributors to follow suit. Hulu, with its close ties to NBC, Fox and yes, Disney, will probably launch a counterattack soon.
Let’s be clear. This is a win for Netflix, but Disney is in charge. Netflix’s content model was getting pinched, and it needed an out. Content is still king, but the deal helps Netflix last long enough to maybe tip the scales a bit more toward distributors.
Top image courtesy of Katherine Welles / Shutterstock. Bottom image courtesy of Shutterstock.
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Yahoo 2012: The Top TV, Movie, Songs & Singer Searches
Dec 3rd
Screen related searches are the backbone of Yahoo’s year in review lists, as actors, actresses, talk show personalities and reality TV celebrities seem to command a bigger presence year after year. In the most popular TV searches on Yahoo in the US, perennial favorite American Idol dominated…
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