dcinput

D-Cinema Bond

Last night I went to the Odeon in Leicester Square to go and see the new James Bond film Casino Royal. I chose that cinema because I new that they had a d-cinema screen there. Now I’ve seen what the d-cinema screen at work looks like but never actually been to a big theatre with one. I knew that the trailers and adverts most probably weren’t going to be digital but as soon as the feature started it was obvious to me that film is dead. If you don’t believe me then watch the opening credits to Bond on a massive d-cinema screen. The colours are so incredibly vibrant and everything moving on the screen so incredibly crisp that you find yourself looking with your eyes wide open in amazement.

Google Video: “This short by Neill Blomkamp depicts a fictional world where extraterrestrials have become refugees in South Africa. Producers: Neill Blomkamp, Simon Hansen, Sharlto Copley, Shannon Worley”. Amazing what a few people can do these days. I’d love to know how long it took them, what tools they used, what workflows they were using, how they colaborated etc. Great short.

Another great short by Vancouver Film School graduate Ori Ben-Shabat. Lots of neeto vfx in this one.

More on the disintermediation of film making

Wired News: “You wouldn’t show a sitcom at a movie theater, right? […] You make movies for the big screen, sitcoms for TV, and something else entirely for the Internet. That’s the lesson of Lonelygirl15″.

A few days ago Penelope Trunk’s post Thinking about videoblogging? You should probably forget about it caused all sorts of discussion on the videoblogging mailing list. Anne from Loaded Pun explains why people on the videoblogging mailing list were annoyed and also ends with what I think the crucial question is: What are you hoping to get out of your vlog?

After reading my post on the disintermediation of film making, Penelope asked me via email whether I thought that the lonelygirl15 affair (check this article) on YouTube was what I was talking about and yes that is absolutely an example of disintermediation of film making. There is a guy, he has this idea for a web based show, he shoots it and puts it out there. Classic disintermediation. What was Mesh Flinders hoping to get out of his vlog? There’s no doubt about it, he was wanted to make money.

So to make money you have to have a product. What’s his product? He’s giving away the show for free to his audience, so it’s not that. He sells advertising space. That’s his product. It kind of feels like it’s the show, but actually it’s the advertising space. The more people watch his shows the more his product is worth. Seems simple doesn’t it: that’s how you make money in videoblogging.

The truth however is slightly different. In fact to see the truth you have to think a little differently. You see lonelygirl15, Rocketboom and ZeFrank are special cases. The thing they are selling, their product, happens to be the videoblog itself (well the advertising really). The vast majority of people in the world sell things we more easily associate with the word ‘product’ like software, food, televisions, holidays.

Blogging, podcasting and videoblogging are all personal media platforms. They are personal information processors that you can use in any endeavor you choose, from making a web based show to raising money for charity to making people aware of a particular issue, to building a business and more generally for selling products of any kind. Use them for communicating, for publicity, for feedback, for gererating new ideas. You’re in control.

You think Adam Curry just has a hit podcast called Daily Source Code? Wrong. The Daily Source Code is his media platform for building his business called Podshow. He also sells advertising so it’s a little confusing. Wait until people start using these mediums to sell products, build companies or to run political campains. That’s when things will really get exciting. That’s what I saw at Podcastcon UK last weekend: normal people who run normal businesses using the mediums in new and interesting ways.

Film making won’t disintermediate with people in the film/entertainment industry alone. There aren’t enough people and there isn’t enough money to be made. It will disintermediate when every person in every industry can use it to build their business. Sure you’ll need some talent, but you need talent to be a good at anything in life.

In the mailing group the title that linked to Penelope’s post was “Disturbing opinions”. I would disagree entirely. I think her piece was a fantastic conversation starter. It got everyone thinking. No doubt some people will think I’m talking a lot of crap, but then we’re all learning as we go along.

The Cinema Expo 2006 kicked off yesterday in Amsterdam.

One of the nice things that came out of my brunch on Sunday was some great reader feedback. I’ve known Pete for around 5 years now and he’s been a reader of the blog from back when I didn’t even talk about digital cinema. At the time he told me that he liked my style of writing, that he found it quite engaging. What he’s noticed of late is that since I’ve taken to the digital cinema route, that not only is he finding it less interesting for him but that he doesn’t even understand a lot of the stuff I link to.

Why did I take to writing about things in my field of work?

One important aspect of having a blog is how it helps you to find out things about yourself. The simple act of writing on a regular basis about things that cross your path and catch your attention changes the way you look at the world. It makes you more curious, more engaged, more interested. It helps to structure your thoughts.

The idea behind giving dcinput a digital cinema direction was to help me explore my current field of work and discover where my interests lie within it. The world of cinema is in such an exciting period of change right now, the boundaries of what is possible are being pushed on a daily basis. Understanding and being interested in this ever-changing environment is of the up most importance.

Using the internet as a tool for finding information and the blog as a way of structuring that information in a way that is meaningful to me is certainly one aspect of the ‘why’. If this was the only reason for having a blog then why bother making it public? Why take the risk of saying the wrong thing and end up with an unhappy employer?

These changes are without a doubt happening on a global scale. The blog then is also a tool to get around the problem of large distances. You see with this blog I can join into the global community of people involved in digital cinema. I can for example find out what technologies are being talked about, what social changes are occurring, and I can take part in the conversation.

In many ways I am still trying to find this digital cinema community on the web. It may be that there simply are not many people from the industry using blogs in this way. I am hoping that this will change. Taking part in Bloggercon IV over the weekend have made me sure of the importance of this new medium.

Even if I have not found the community I am looking for just yet, blogging it seems has another trick up its sleeve. Seen in a bigger picture sense, blogging is perhaps the most useful and powerful as a tool for building bridges between communities. In this new digital age, fields that have traditionally progressed on their own are converging massively. A blog allows you to have a foot in many communities at once. It helps you to build bridges.

Shaping a Blog around reader feedback

Now that I’m on my way to understanding why I do this blogging thing in the first place, I’m going to try to take Pete’s comments on board. Over the last few months my busy work schedule has meant that simply linking to digital cinema related articles has been faster and easier than actually putting across my personal views on issues that matter. I find that most of the things I actually work on I can’t actually talk about for several months and are in any case of a pretty technical nature.

Over the next few months I am going to try to identify certain topics that are of concern to the digital cinema landscape as well as others that cross into other areas. I’ll then concentrate my exploration of the internet somewhat around these areas and write about them as I learn new things. Though you will certainly find me occasionally talking about some new geeky piece of hardware, I will also do my best to venture into themes like Net Neutrality, Intellectual Property and Copyright for instance. I welcome any suggestions!

Thanks again Pete, I really value your opinions.

Looks like the Frontier kernel is heading for a spot of performance tuning. I have certainly noticed peoples blogs on blogs.opml.org acting real slow lately. It’s one of the reasons I’ve decided to stay with Wordpress for the moment.

Rex Hammond has also been thinking about why he blogs: “remember that: The core product, the core brand is you and your cause and your product or service”.

The making money angle is interesting. Making money is definitely not something I am looking to do with this blog. I have no plans to put any advertising in the sidebar and I won’t be pushing any products. This blog belongs to me, only me, and I like it that way. It’s my tool to explore, to experiment, to learn and to communicate. I won’t compromise on this in any way. Ah-ha.

The Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival opened its doors last Friday and runs until next Sunday. Its just reminded me of how much I am in need of a sunny holiday.

I’ve got a school reunion comming up pretty soon. Scarry stuff. Lots of emails flying around from people that I haven’t seen in a decade. Rumours of husbands or wives and babies and pregnancies. Some I know to be true and others not. Good to see that a decade apart hasn’t stoped the wind ups.

TechCrunch: Amazon launches grid service web storage. It is a storage service backend for developers that offers “a highly scalable, reliable, and low-latency data storage infrastructure at very low costs”. Looks like you could store a 2K feature film for around $300 a month (not including the one off transfer fee). Thats pretty reasonable. I bet they have pretty big capacity. It’ll never happen though.

Sponsor a monkey. I happen to know this one and he’s top notch.

Reuters: “Google Book Search would allow publishers to set the prices for their books and make them available through a reader’s Web browser.”

As a school project C.Ronson came up with the ipod hoodie. He’s already received over 15 000 orders and is in talks with various places in China to get them made. At £15 a go thats a nice little earner. I want one.

Reuters: “Movie theater owners are considering asking federal authorities for permission to jam cell phone reception in an attempt to stop annoying conversations during films”. I favour the introdction of a cinema vigilante / neighbourhood watch approach - make it legal for other cinema goers to slap the loud mouths.

New Scary Movie trailer on YouTube. Funny.

Randolph J. May: “Adoption of a broad Net neutrality prohibition will impose monopoly-era public-utility-style regulation on new broadband services in an era characterized by competition”. Randolph takes the other side of the argument believing government net neutrality to be a bad idea in the long run.

Marguerite Reardon: “The broader discussion was what exactly Net neutrality means and whether legislators are discussing a solution to a problem that doesn’t yet exist”. In the same article Blair Levin analyst for Stifel: “I am hopelessly confused about Net neutrality”. At least I’m not the only one.

Nice little piece by Cyndi Greening of Cinematical about blogging in the film industry. She’s at SXSW…it looks like fun.

I’m really enjoying my new style of blogging. It’s really just the start of things at the minute. I’m usually very busy at work during the day and so only really have time to cut and paste a few quotes from things I find interesting in my world and link to them. I’m hoping to also get better at these bits, the bits where I just type and put accross some of my ideas about stuff. You know the more personal bits. I’m not that good at those yet and bound to suck for a while but you can always read somebody else’s blog.

Been thinking about Dave stoping blogging and I think I understand his thinking, in as much as you can understand someone you’ve never met or talked to…hey I’m just a fan.

Thought that I’d mention for future reference that I reserve the right to stop this blog at anytime for whatever reason and without warning (though I’d probably wave).