dcinput

Steve Rubel: “The rapid pace of change will not only turn TV into an open content platform, but it will radically shift how advertising dollars are allocated and how the entire ad industry operates.”

Susan Buice: “I just want to make something that resonates because when I see something that resonates with me I feel connected. Feeling connected to the world and to other human experiences is what makes me feel alive and happy. When I don’t feel connected I feel like a meaningless blob of flesh and I want to die.”

I picked this quote from Susan Buice because it made my laugh. It’s part of an interview she did with Arin Crumbley with whom she runs Four Eyed Monsters. Go read the interview and pay attention to these guys because they are doing interesting things. Arin is responsible for the Open Source Documentary about Net Neutrality that I wrote about a while back. That piece of work and a few other things that were happening to me at the time all converged together helping me to form new ideas about film making, documentary making and more generally how the web is turning things on their head. Ultimately it lead to my mini-essay on the disintermediation of film making. Now while I think and talk about these things Arin and Susan are out there actually doing cool stuff. I think you should pay them some attention and others do to.

Andrew Baron: “I am very optimistic for TiVo’s future as far as his vision for seamlessly merging i.p. and broadcast content”.

Over the last few years I’ve been watching and learning what effects the web is having on business, on society, on people. As I learn, there are all these new words, ideas and technologies that are floating around in my head like podcasting, videoblogging, Web Services, Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, Salesforce On-Demand Architecture, open source, virtualisation, vendor relationship management, gestures, and more. Everyday is like one of those tests where you have to find the odd one out from a set of shapes. As time goes on these various things accumulate in my head, some get thrown by the wayside, but for some unknown reason others clump together because they seem related in some way.

The one big idea that I keep coming back to is the Internet as the Great Disintermediator: the disintermediation of the aggregators and repackagers of the world. I keep wondering how this idea applies to film. How will film making become disintermediated? A few experiences over the weekend have helped me get closer to the answer to this question.

I was at Podcastcon UK over the weekend. I don’t have a podcast and I’m not a videoblogger but I find both of these activities so interesting that I thought I should go down there just to see what people were talking about and also to be in an environment where others understood this interest [most of my friends think I’m mad].

What’s funny was that the panel sessions that I thought I would find least interesting ended up being the best ones and the ones I was really looking forward to ended up being a bit of a disappointment. The Creative Podcasting session in the end became a session about advertising and the Citizen Journalism segment ended up being a discussion about nomenclature and old media techniques applied to podcasting.

It was the Business of Podcasting panel that surprised me the most. This was all about how people were using podcasting within the corporate space to expand and often to diversify their business. One example was Tom Hall from the Lonely Planet who explained how they were using podcasts to compliment their travel books with travel casts of various locations around the world as well as using user generated audio from travellers moving around the globe.

Last night after I posted about the Net Neutrality Open Source Documentary, I was pondering why it was that I had found that so powerful and why it was that the seemingly boring Business of Podcasting Panel had turned out, imho, to have been the most creative. It suddenly dawned upon me that the first question to answer shouldn’t be ‘how’, rather why should we disintermediate film making in the first place? If everybody could make films easily, why would they do it at all?

Making films is about telling a story. It’s about getting ideas from inside your head into someone else’s. Loosely speaking, the film landscape tends to have factual documentaries on one edge and fictional films at the other and there’s obviously lots of mixing in the middle. Now although there are plenty of people who create fantastic fictional film work, I would imagine that for most of the people on the planet, it would be far more useful if they could quickly, cheaply and easily use the medium of film to put across an idea in business.

It’s very hard with words alone to put across an idea that has been building in your head over many months, sometimes years to someone (perhaps a boss, or investor) who has not met the people you’ve met, not read the articles you have, not payed attention to the people you find influential. Making money by the disintermediation of the film making process is going to be made by giving people a way to make their profession easier. In the future CEO’s will be film makers.

Who knows, maybe there will come the day when you can walk around putting bits of media in your pocket as you roam and you then seamlessly use this accumulated media stuff to tell stories to your friends around the table down the pub in glorious 3D hologram. Fictional story telling is for fun, thank goodness.

Mike Ambs‘ edit of ‘Human Labotomy’ [the first edit of the Net Neutrality Open Source Documentary was by Arin Crumley], is an excellent piece of work. The net neutrality debate has been going for a while, I’ve written about it several times. I find this documentary project important for several reasons.

These two edits do a fantastic job of painting the net neutrality picture. The subject isn’t a trivial matter to understand. I’ve been reading things for many months now and it’s the first time I’ve seen something that fully and simply puts across the message. This is done by looking back at the evolution of previous forms of media intercut with recent interviews with important web figures like Tim Berneres Lee and Lawrence Lessig, all to well chosen background music.

It uses the web a platform for documentary making. Using publicly available media that is available on the web in places like YouTube, Google Video, Podzinger and Delicious and by publishing project files under some form of creative commons license they are enabling others to re-edit and release their own versions. By watching and re-watching you learn more things and see new perspectives.

It helps to spread the word, start conversations and get people involved.

I really like projects that use the web in new ways. I know this isn’t the first open source style film making project but there’s something about one that pushes the boundaries of film making using the web while at the same time trying to save it.

Ask a Ninja: Net Neutrality.

I haven’t been listening to any Daily Source Codes since my ipod broke - 6th time now but the warranty seems to have just expired on this last one. I’ve been treating it as a DSC holiday which has actually been quite nice as I’ve been able to do read some books on my commutes.

I was looking at the shownotes for the last few shows and it seems that Adam has been talking about net neutrality quite a bit. Check out this show [skip to 19:50] and this show [skip to 6:55]. He seems to have quite a lot of experience in this field and it’s worth listening what he has to say. He is against the net neutrality bill. If I get time I will try to summarise his views later today.

CNet: “Senate panel narrowly rejected strict Net neutrality rules on Wednesday”.

A few days ago a big water pipe exploded under the road just near my house. We now have two enormous holes in the road and a little river. This morning the water supply had been cut off which meant no shower and perhaps more importantly no tea.

I’ve ventured down to Upper Street and am having a nice lunch in a cafe. Great wireless! Turns out the whole of Upper Street now has free wireless in some Islington council initiative. They are calling it ‘Technology Mile‘. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up.

My cousin Deirdre Mulrooney is soon to start working for Cirque du Soleil in Montreal. She has a blog which I really hope she’ll start writting a little more on. I’d love to know what adventures she’ll be getting up to. Good luck with it Deirdre.

Today has been a tourist day - in my own town. I’ve been living in London nearly 10 years now and you can easily forget how beautifull it actually is. I went down to the Tate meuseum to have a look at some modern art. It’s really refreshing to do this every once and a while, it changes the way you look at things.

I took some tourist photos all along the river during my travels but it seems that flickr won’t play ball. It’s actually been doing this for around a week now and I’m starting to worry that there is something wrong with my account. Can you imagine loosing all you Flickr photos? I mean they’re all backed up but what a pain to find them and ontop of that all the links that would break in the blog…

Downloaded the Flickr uploader for Mac OSX. No joy with that either. Urrgh.

Andrew Gursky (Germany) had one photo which simply has to be seen in its full glory. It is called 99 Cent and is taken in a US store. He has digitally altered the colours so that they are far more vibrant than normal.

Other pieces that caught my eye were ‘Siena’ by Olivio Barbiera who takes arial photographs using tilt shift lenses to give the impression that everything is a scale model. Here is an example.

Magritte’s painting of the man reading the newspaper was there too. This is one of my favorites. The way he changes the perspective ever so slightly in each quadrant combined with the fact that the man only apears in the top left quadrant makes me just want to keep looking at it.

Magritte, a Belgian surrealist, apparently prefered quiet subversion over public action. If you know Belgium and its people well you might have seen this in its culture, a part of which has definitely rubbed off on me from my years there.

I’m not too sure of the legality of any of these pictures being on the blog so I’ll be happy to remove them if this is a problem. Just mail me.

Amanda Congdon does a piece [video] on net neutrality for Rocketboom.

Kevin Marks is interviewed [video] about net neutrality at Supernova. According to Kevin it’s more about net symetry. The idea that the telcos are trying to make us pay for their bad provisioning is interesting.

Tim Berners-Lee: “When I invented the Web, I didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going end in the USA” [real video of his statement].

Earlier I watched the film “Good Night, and Good Luck“. It stars David Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow a pioneering Radio and TV presenter in 1950s America. It tells the true story of how Murrow then a journalist of the CBS network managed to expose Senator Joseph McCArthy over his communist “witch hunt” despite huge pressures from the government and advertisers to drop the story. A brilliant performance by Strathairn.

It is a dangerous thing indeed when any person or organisation of people have control over a powerfull medium of communication. The internet has so far managed to escape this fate, but this film was a reminder that we should keep a close eye on things else we could loose the freedom of things like blogging, vlogging and podcasting, and maybe only some years after they were made possible for all.

Edward R. Murrow from his speech at the RTNDA Convention, 1958:

“This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful”.

Richard Bennet: “When BitTorrent is slowed down by backoff, it simply propagates more paths, creating more and more congestion. In another year, the Internet is going to be just as unstable as it was in 1985″.

Richard at times seems like a pretty angry guy, but sometimes you need an angry guy plus I wanted to find the other side of the argument. You can find all his posts on the subject of net neutrality here [there are lots!].

Slingshot is a new British film company that plans to “use the freedoms afforded by the digital revolution up and down the value chain to make better films and deliver them more efficiently”. They’ve been getting some press coverage in the Guardian and Varierty. They also have a blog and were wondering whether anyone was reading it. Well it looks like some people are.

Feeling sad? Well the Laughter Network might be just what you need!

Where the hell is Matt? I was thinking this just the other day. Funny.

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.

BBC News reports on net neutrality and what Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, has to say about it. “What’s very important from my point of view is that there is one web. Anyone that tries to chop it into two will find that their piece looks very boring”.

It does worry me that the roll out of digital cinema around the globe could contribute negatively in the long run to the net neutrality issue. I’d hate to look back in 20 years and think that I played a part in breaking the web. Dave Winer says that the dark nets are already here, and he’s right of course.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I am on a Redhat course this week which is pretty much taking up all my time. It’s linux 9 to 5 and then revison till midnight as soon as I get home for the exam which is on Friday. Exams aren’t much fun and my brain is starting to melt.

Hollywood Reporter: “George Lucas has Industrial Light + Magic, Peter Jackson has Weta, and now Michael Bay has Digital Domain”.

The BBC is in Second Life: “The BBC has staked a claim to a virtual tropical island where it can stage online music festivals and throw exclusive celebrity parties”.

Skype has announced free landline and mobile calls for people calling within the US and Canada. I wonder what this means for the net neutrality issue. Surely the big telcos aren’t going to like this. Will they start sniffing for VOIP packets? We shall have to wait and see.

Steve Garfield has an amuzingly geeky picture of himself inside second life, inside real life. Far out.

Mark Nelson: “Sony has caved in to the dominance of the iPod and started supporting AAC”.

Happy Easter everybody! Hopefully you’ve all had a great weekend. Don’t eat too much chocolate…

Chris Bliss’ juggling rocks.

Loaded pun: “A South Korean company has devloped an lcd projector built into photo and video capable cellphones which projects a seven inch display on flat surfaces”. Watching a film on the beach at night could be pretty neat. Can’t imagine the big cinema chains liking this one.

BBC News: “Recent estimates say that around a third of all internet traffic is based around BitTorrent”…”Some ISPs go even further, breaking down customers’ net usage into different types of activity, and discriminating against bandwidth-hungry file-sharers”…”What we’re seeing is ISPs introducing tiered services”.

Frank Gruber analyses the various services that sell online music on TechCrunch in a two part piece. In this first piece he compares pay-per-download services. The next part will look at all you can eat subscription services. The outlook is heavy DRM and an AAC/WMA format war which is bound to end in tears for us users.

Dave Winer: “Instead of thinking of “user generated content” think of the Internet as an idea processor, and you’ll be much closer to the power of what’s going on”.

I’m always looking for different ways of looking at the internet and I like this one. Depending on who you are and what you do the internet can seem like very different things, and it changes over time.

When I first started going online in the early nineties I was pretty impressed but I soon got bored as I realised that really the internet was just a glorified catalogue. Websites were static and they just tended to show you things. You couldn’t really interact. I’m sure there were interesting things going on in the web then but I just wasn’t aware of them.

The web today is a very different place. People of all walks of life all around the globe are able to interact in so many different ways, share things, create things, do business and more. Its incredible that the web has so far met everyone’s needs. The pace of change is accelerating rapidly and the boundaries of what the web is are being pushed in ever more directions. The whole net neutrality issue is somehow related to this. Will the web continue to evolve as something for everyone? It’s an important question.

The web as storage in the clouds: Amazon S3 - Simple Storage Services.

Great audio interview by Dr Jobbs with Amazon’s Adam Selipsky about the new S3 service. I’m starting to see the big deal with this thing. I’m also starting to get some really good ideas for new projects. When you don’t have to worry about storage things could get a lot more fun for developers.

Looks like the Da Vinci Code will get released after all as Dan Brown wins his case at the High Court in the UK. Any publicity is good publicity.
NYTimes: “The authors of ‘Holy Blood’, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, had failed in their effort to prove that Mr. Brown had stolen their ‘central theme’ because they could not accurately state what that theme was”.

Rushi has compiled a great list of links for AJAX newbies and its kind of geared towards PHP programmers. Just what I was looking for.

Techdirt: Universal Pictures are trying to beat dvd counterfeiters at their own game in Russia by selling “cheap ‘n early” dvds at lower cost and quality.

I missed this post on Cinematical last weekend about the upcomming Shrek spin off “Puss in Boots”. I had wondered what had happened to this idea. While I was working at the Creature Shop last year I had a load of fun doing some motion capture tests for this. Due to the fact that cats have weird back legs that bend the wrong way, the physical department, which built the animatronics, had made a special Puss in Boots exoskeleton that a human wore and to which the motion capture sensors were attached. In this way the motion data that was captured would look like it was from a walking cat.

I ended up doing the initial testing for the exoskeleton as I was about the right size and had to prance about the studio with a pretend sword. When it came down to the actual motion capture shoot they got someone else in but I did get to try on the Honey Monster outfit that day too. Brings back such good memories.

Complete coincidence but I’m going to a reunion lunch of the Creature Shop engineering team tomorrow which should be interesting. Damn it’s such a shame that the place closed down.

BBC News: “Hundreds of thousands of people have signed up for new .eu domain name since it became available to the public on Friday”. Damn it some person with my name got the one I wanted. Imposter!

BBC News: “Digital download-to-own is the new holy grail of the film and TV industry as it fights to respond to the twin challenges of piracy and new market entrants”…”However, the consumer must be at the centre of all new strategies and DRM systems that are not sufficiently flexible are doomed to failure”.