VR virtual reality cinema coming

IN THIS POST: short overview of some major technogical changes from digitization, then a focus (TBC and rolling updates) on VR


The film industry, at times reluctantly, has embraced a series of new technologies over recent decades, and the disruptive forces of digitization always seem poised to transform what at heart is quite a conservative industry, locked into franchises, the star system (changing?) and dominated by a mere 'big six' companies despite all the changes.

As with cassette tapes, you may have been born after the VHS tape disappeared from the high street

DVD meant they could:

1. re-monetize back catalogue [long tail...]; just as the music industry got millions to replace their tapes/vinyl with (sonically inferior!) CDs so too did the movie industry make billions from VHS tapes being replaced
2. the monetizing went further with editionalising: usually starting with a vanilla (movie only, perhaps a trailer added) edition, and leading over time to any combination of special, collector's, ultimate (etc) edition, not to mention director's cut, with commentaries and other extras to push sales, plus footage cut for cinema release

Geek.com headline, 2014.

Avatar, Paul, Cornetto Trilogy: audience, marketing, digitisation

http://www.threeflavorsscreenplay.com/theworldsend/
https://www.instagram.com/theworldsendfilm/
https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the-world's-end
https://www.facebook.com/TheWorldsEndMovieUK/
https://twitter.com/hashtag/TheWorldsEnd?src=hash
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/beyond-the-screen/id830552609?mt=8
Wend Intl trailer;
http://corporate.comcast.com/our-company/businesses/nbcuniversal#accordion-3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ynzqn83T1c

WorldsEnd UK site;

2016 cornetto trilogy compressed from DB3igs

Quite simply bringing together some of the material on here on these...



WT use game to market Paul - play it here.


might add more...

WARP'S £48K LE DONK
This is both a good example of how low budget Indies can compete ... and an illustration of how much more Warp could/should be doing when promoting their films, even if that is the job of the distributor!!!
In this case, Le Donk was self-distributed in the UK, with a VoD (convergence!!! digitisation!!! proliferation!!!) US release. Below is a screen recording browsing the Warp web page for this



The page did offer the opportunity to send 'an exclusive Le Donk... Christmas card' ... but the link is dead now ... AND just look at the 'latest' news (I checked again May 2015!) ... its on Tyrannosaur!!! If Chris Anderson's long tail theory is to work surely they need to try harder with the online marketing?!

US VoD link and a dead link to some smart online marketing

Self-distribution!

This sums up the issue with Warp's online marketing - too little effort!!!

...

CONVERGENCE All the world's a Marvellous stage/silver screen

See Marvel section below for analysis; image source.

Age Of Ultron marks Whedon’s swan song in the Avengers director chair but it’s hardly the end of the saga. The two-part Infinity War story has been set in stone for 2018 and 2019, along with eight other Marvel titles. DC, looking to get its comic-book universe up and running, has also announced a hefty release schedule. In tandem with a fresh batch of X-Men sequels, Spider-man spin-offs and Fantastic Four reboots, that’s at least 25 new superhero movies over the next five years.  - Bernstein, 2015.  See later sections below for analysis of the Marvel universe, UGC, web 2.0 and extended narratives...

I'll add to this shortly [done!]; having blogged on convergence (TV-film) this morning, this caught my eye, and made me think of theatrical adaptations of Bridget Jones, Billy Elliot and such. This can go the other way - West Side Story being an early example, Les Miserables  a more recent (Working Title) example. WT have a long track record of exploiting IP (intellectual property), especially novels, for adaptation (Atonement, BJD...).

Do you believe in fairies? Does Harvey Weinstein?
The famously fractious producer has spent millions of dollars and run through a couple of casts and creative teams in a diehard attempt to transform the 2004 Miramax film Finding Neverland into a Broadway show. - Soloski (2015) - Finding Neverland review – Gary Barlow's dull songs sink muddled show.

Once more, if we consider Working Title and Warp, we can see how a process evangelised by some (take a bow Dan Gillmor, or Chris 'long tail theory' Anderson) as democratising, levelling the playing field, actually seems to favour the conglomerates (...take a bow Andrew Keen, John McMuria, maybe even Anita 'blockbuster [ie tentpole] strategy' Elberse)!

Anita Elberse (2013) Blockbusters - must-read book?

"Because people are inherently social," the Harvard business professor Anita Elberse points out, "they generally find value in reading the same books and watching the same television shows and movies that others do." What's more, and equally understandably: "People have a taste for winners: if, say, a book is popular and has been widely discussed in the media, consumers have more reason to read it." [from Guardian review]

Scroll down for sample quotes and review snippets, such as Bloomberg's fairly critical view

Use the look inside feature for a preview

I'd recommend at the very least sampling this, a book that basically argues that the tentpole strategy (or blockbuster as she terms it) is vital for any and all modern media/entertainment giants. Her examples take in music, film and other media, but also widen out to incorporate 'entertainment' industries such as football, looking at the examples of Barcelona and Real Madrid, and the latter's 'galacticos' strategy.

She very convincingly picks out examples of major conglomerates that have tried more austere, penny-pinching approaches ... and shows, with forensic financial detail, how disastrous this invariably proved.

Interesting that she's not simply referring to production, but also as much about distribution, and the marketing muscle and capacity to make very widely available and prominently placed a given release, Lady Gaga being one such example she dissects.

You can preview some samples by using Amazon's 'look inside' feature, or GoogleBooks (add keywords related to cinema, music or whichever industry you're most interested in to get the most relevant sections), and its for sale as a Kindle book too.

Here's a few snippets from various articles/reviews:

"Because people are inherently social," the Harvard business professor Anita Elberse points out, "they generally find value in reading the same books and watching the same television shows and movies that others do." What's more, and equally understandably: "People have a taste for winners: if, say, a book is popular and has been widely discussed in the media, consumers have more reason to read it." [Guardian review]