Tag: YouTube

IndieStreet Post #11: The Rebirth of the Indie Video Store Experience — Why Human Curation Will Never Die

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date February 26, 2014
3 Comments on IndieStreet Post #11: The Rebirth of the Indie Video Store Experience — Why Human Curation Will Never Die

By Lindsay Blair Goeldner

Screen shot 2013-08-19 at 4.51.06 PM

Previously: Sundance 2014 — a Microcosm of a Greater Divides

At Indie Street we are holding on to all hope that the interpersonal human elements of storytelling will never fade away into obsoleteness. The following piece comes from one of Indie Street’s own curators. While she is not programming a film festival or being one of the coolest computer programming chicks in the game, Lindsay finds time to work at one of the last Indie Video Rental Stores in Canada. Who better to get a street level breakdown about the effects of technology on film consumer’s behavior…Enjoy!

Screen shot 2014-02-24 at 12.53.06 PM The death of the indie video store is imminent. At least that’s what everyone tells me. Working as a video store clerk in one of a handful of stores (Queen Video) in Toronto is both a blessing and a burden. While the job remains interesting, I’m continually receiving remarks about how great it is that we’re still open. In the wake of the Blockbuster collapse, the independent video store flourished. Business seemed better than usual around late 2011 when the last Blockbusters were closing down in Canada. At that point in time, Netflix had already arrived, and streaming was still popular, but for some reason many people did not want to let go of the video store experience.

Tags curation, Guest Post, Indie Street, IndieStreet, Jay Webb, lindsay blair goeldner, Netflix, video stores, YouTube

Truly Free Film

Nobody Knows Anything #5: Rethinking Transmedia and Crossmedia

Post author By Charles Peirce
Post date February 19, 2014
44 Comments on Nobody Knows Anything #5: Rethinking Transmedia and Crossmedia

By Charles Peirce

As I alluded to in a previous post, Transmedia is in the midst of a debate about its definition and who has the authority to determine that definition. It is one of those discussions I think best observed from the sidelines, but then I have no financial or artistic stake in that debate. However, I do think they’re important terms to understand.

Truly Free Film

Screen Forever 2013: Google’s Approach to Watching Content Owners’ Backs

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date February 3, 2014
48 Comments on Screen Forever 2013: Google’s Approach to Watching Content Owners’ Backs

by Andrew Einspruch

Filmmaker Andrew Einspruch attended Screen Forever 2013, the conference of Screen Producers Australia, this past year and wrote a series of articles for the event, which he’s kindly allowing us to reprint here. These articles originally appeared in Screen Hub, the daily online newspaper for Australian film and television professionals.

The world of content and culture is moving online. And search giant Google is in the driver’s seat to know what the trends are. But the digital world unfolds in a fraught way for many creators. In the opening session of this year’s Screen Forever conference, Derek Slater, Global Public Policy Manager, Google USA, gave a glimpse into this changing world, as viewed by the advertising behemoth. Andrew Einspruch reports.

100 hours.

That’s how much content currently gets uploaded to YouTube every minute. That`s a week`s worth of viewing in less than two minutes, and a year`s worth in less than two hours. That`s the supply side.

On the demand side, six billion hours get watched every month, or just under an hour per person on the planet, whether they have an Internet connection or not. It is a staggering change to the world, especially when you consider that YouTube did not exist nine years ago.

Google USA`s Derek Slater, a self-confessed fan of the Australian show “Frontline,” discussed this boom in creativity, and put it in the context of creators and money. Put simply, you have more content creators than ever before, and more ways for them to make money from all the connected consumers out there. He cited statistics that said digital music revenue was more than $5.6 billion in 2012, and that digital movies were nearly 30% of revenue in the US in 2012, up from 19% in 2011. Ebooks show a similar jump, with 457 million sold in 2012, up 43% from 2011.

It is still a developing market, but it represents a massive shift from the previous decade.

Slater also described Australia as a huge net exporter of video, with eight times as much Aussie video consumed off-shore than on-shore. Looked at differently, twice as much Australian content is consumed in the US than in Australia. From Slater`s perspective, it shows that local content is thriving, and contributing to a trade surplus in that category.

Tags Andrew Einspruch, Australian International Documentary Conference, Copyright, Google, Guest Post, screen forever 2013, Screen Hub, YouTube

Issues and Actions

Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date February 10, 2013
162 Comments on Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should

Let’s say you are one of the biggest corporations in the universe, and you own the most successful company in a particular sector, and they in turn own one of the most popular purveyors of a particular type of product; and, well, in some ways there is no denying that each of you are revolutionary. Between the three of you, you have provided an unprecedented structure that allows anyone to reach virtually everyone at what appears — on first blush — to be no cost, or at least very little. On top of that, you give people a way to actually make a few cents on what they love doing anyway (pennies for your passion, pennies for your passion — we don’t even need a rallying cry in this world of win win). Does this alleviate the need to work ethically or even just the need to do the right thing?

Not sure what I am writing about? Well…. If you haven’t yet read or heard about the contracts that Machinima, Maker Studios, and other YouTube partners have evidently demanded their makers sign, you might want to.

But be warned this knowledge may cause harmful

Tags Ben Vacas, ethics, HuskyStarcraft, Machinama, Maker Studios, Tessa Stuart, Union For Gamers, YouTube

Truly Free Film

What Is The Great Hope For The Future Of Cinema?

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date July 11, 2012
141 Comments on What Is The Great Hope For The Future Of Cinema?

Or for that matter, what do you think can really change and move things forward in both the near and distant future? If we could ask five key people what they saw on our various horizons, what would they show us? Who should we ask? One of the great things about being pointed in a direction, is that it is almost a path. Could we have walked down that road when Francis Ford Coppola predicted YouTube in 1991:

It is not easy to just boil down to one specific all the various change that is swarming over us at this point. I see major shifts coming in so many different aspects of cinema: discovery, consideration, value/return, participation, collaboration, transitioning, immersion, and many others.

Tags film length, Francis Ford Coppola, innovation, New Models, short films, transmedia, video, YouTube

Let's Make Better Films Truly Free Film

The Entertainment Economy Is Completely Different Than It Was

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date May 21, 2012
623 Comments on The Entertainment Economy Is Completely Different Than It Was

Make no mistake: The Entertainment Economy can no longer be predicated on scarcity or control — as it has been for the last 110 years. We need to rebuild it around concept of super-abundance & access.

“YouTubers Upload 72 Hours of Video Every Minute” That’s up from 48 hours a year ago. At what age do we reach Saturation Point? I already have: I have identified every film I would like to see — if I am able to maintain my maximum rate of consumption — to carry me 5 years past my life expectancy. The very nature of technology indicates that in less than ten years, a twenty year old cinephile will have done the same. I expect that to happen much sooner though. Audiences will have no “need” for the new. We have so many cute animals and children doing silly things after all. Who really needs an ambitious and relevant cinema? So why do anything to preserve it (let alone advance it)? Let’s just bury our heads and try to hold onto what is left of our jobs. Right?

I am glad there are those that know otherwise.