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Fingers Crossed For Netflix

Mar 19, ’11 2:53 PM

We should all hope the Netflix dip into original programming works.

As a person with dreams of some day putting together a feature film or even shooting a television pilot, the rise of Netflix as a ubiquitous distribution platform is potentially a dream come true. It is the last piece in a puzzle that should give rise to the golden age of video as a story telling medium.

For now let’s set aside the difference in what Netflix might pay for a movie or television series as compared to a studio because 1) I don’t know; and 2) I am approaching Netflix from the perspective of someone with no movie industry contacts, an agent, etc.

Consider what you need in order to make a film whose primary distribution will be the web:

A camera: There is plenty of evidence that the newer dslr’s from Canon and Nikon can hold their own with $100,000 Panavision film cameras, or at least not be laughed off the stage. But what is certain is that when viewed on the web or steamed to a television screen the difference is virtually not existent. In other words you can shoot your feature with an $1,600 camera.

Lens: I don’t want to potentially endure the wrath of people who care deeply about these sorts of things by suggesting you can get a more than sufficient image out of $1,000 worth of lenses. So instead I will simply offer that either it is possible to buy a couple lenses such as a 50 mm 1.8 ($100), an 85 mm 2.0 ($400) with $500 left over to rent/borrow/beg for a specialty lens to either get wide angle or telephoto shots. Is that an ideal setup knot but what is the alternative.

Well the alternative is to do what is common in the traditional film/music video industry: rent what you need. The camera lens rental market is strong both with online vendors that have everything and will ship any where and local shops with a few of the most popular lenses. With this option it is possible to get a $2,000 lens for a week and just pay $100 or so. That opens up a lot of options, and again, gets you to where you need to be in terms of threshold to produce a professional image.

Software: the same software suite that is being used to produce $50 million dollar features is being sold by Apple with Final Cut and Adobe with CS5 Production Pro for less than $2,000…a lot less if you are upgrading from some earlier version. Those are not just for editing but rather entire suites that can handle special effects, sound editing, encoding, coloring, and editing.

Sound: I don’t know a great dal about this but if you combine the sound library in the software above with some $500 worth of microphones an recorders you can at least get some sufficient audio.

I have been careful to use the word sufficient because I think that is what we are looking for and what qualifies as sufficient significantly changes with an online distributor.

But that was several hundred words to make a single point: for less than $5,000 it is possible technically to shoot the quality that is needed.

What that does not include is anything that requires people.

But let’s just say you have taught yourself how to handle all of the technical things, you wrote the script yourself, and happen to know a couple of undiscovered talented actors who are willing to work for free. That is a whole lot of…just happen to have lying around stuff…and that is really the second point. Talent is going to rule the day. There are no longer technical limitations.

Through either your own talent or a combination of your own and others, if you have a great story you can execute technically then you can get your film made. And after you cut an extended 5 minute trailer your first call can be to Netflix. And if they are smart they will begin to invest the money necessary to answer your call and come up with a licensing arrangement that encourages them to promote your film to the people who are likely to watch it (and no one has a better way of predicting this than them) and rewards you for its success.

Consider the alternative: You need to shoot for a much bigger screen requiring much more expensive gear to submit for a film festival that might or might not accept your entry, will get you in front of a handful of producers who if they buy your film will get it into a handful of theaters and by handful of movie goers whose interest tend to be skewed toward non-commercial type films.

I don’t mean to suggest technology has suddenly unchained the best filmmakers to actually make movies. Bill Shakespeare didn’t need Microsoft Word, an electric thesaurus or access to Wikipedia to create relatively strong prose. But I suspect there might have been a writer or two with tremendous but not necessarily apparent talent slip through the cracks because he could not pay for paper or pens. There most certainly have been screen writers who wouldn’t have sold their script to a studio but rather made it themselves had they been able to access the tools.

And in the end I think it will be the writers who are the biggest beneficiaries of the new alignment of professional tools and ubiquitous distribution.


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Why an iPad (or iPad 2)?

Mar 10, ’11 8:49 AM

A friend with a similar interest in electronics, and perhaps equal in his devouring of web information on a daily basis as my own, has resisted the crowds rush to buy an iPad. His question, “why would I buy an iPad if I have an iPhone and a laptop?” Today it seems David Pogue has given the answer. Not why my friend should buy one, but why the people in the same circumstances have chosen to (and why it might not make sense):

“An utter disappointment and abysmal failure” (Orange County Design Blog).

“Consumers seem genuinely baffled by why they might need it” (Businessweek).

“Nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks” (Bloomberg).

“Insanely great it is not” (MarketWatch).

“My god, am I underwhelmed” (Gizmodo).

Good heavens! What a critical drubbing! Whatever it is must be a real turkey. What could it be? Only the fastest-selling gadget in the history of electronics: the Apple iPad.All right, let’s not pile onto the tech critics. The thing is, they were right, at least from a rational standpoint. The iPad was superfluous. It filled no obvious need. If you already had a touch-screen phone and a laptop, why on earth would you need an iPad? It did seem like just a big iPod Touch.But as it turns out, the iPad’s appeal is more emotional than rational. Once you get it in your hands, you get caught up in the fascination of manipulating on-screen objects by touching them.


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NFL Owners Go with the Patrick Ewing Argument

Mar 8, ’11 4:48 AM

“Sure, we make a lot of money, but we spend a lot, too.”

Two of my favorite writers converged today when John Gruber at Daring Fireball linked to Bill Simmons at ESPN 2′s most recent column about the NFL labor using the headline “Greed is Good in NFL Labor Talks.” I had read the piece by Simmons yesterday and missed the possible Wall Street connection (the original not horrible in a good way sequel). But the headline got me to thinking.

But let’s backup for a second and first flesh out Gordon Gekko’s original point about greed being good. His point to the shareholders in the room was that the desire of management to make as much money as possible was ultimately good not just for the shareholders but America at large. If companies try and make as much money as possible, that will allow them to employ more people, and both the employees and the company will grow in wealth and that in turn will make the country greater, ect. Sounds good though it is probably worth pointing out that it is being made by the villain of the movie.

But it gets us back to the NFL labor dispute and the point Simmons makes in a sort of tongue in cheek manner: the NFL owners want to make as much money as possible and it trumps all other considerations. Profit is more important to them than anything including winning, local celebrity status, and all the other soft perks of being an NFL owner. I don’t know how the Vanity NFL Franchise owner vs. the Gordon Gekko NFL owner comes down percentage wise, but let’s take Simmons’ view that it is 100% the latter.

That leaves us with the question: Is Greed Good for the NFL?

The short answer is probably no. It is not. Even Gordon Gekko would have a hard time making his defense of greed work for the NFL. Remember when he gives the famous speech in Wall Street he does it in the context of explaining why Teldar Paper needed to be raided. It had a bunch of bureaucrats making hundreds of thousands of dollars each year even while the company was losing $110 million dollars. In addition to that the management of the company were not even very large shareholders for the company they worked for. In other words, there was not an incentive for them to try and do well for the company and as a result they were not doing a very good job of running it. Gekko would do better because he would remove the waste and focus on what was being done well. Great. Hurrah. Whatever.

The problem in extending Gekko’s world view to the NFL is that the NFL is doing quite well. There seems to be virtually no evidence to the contrary. The teams that win are making money. The teams that are losing are making money. The big markets are making money. The small markets are making money. And all of this is occurring under the current revenue split with players. Somehow the owners have ended up in the position Patrick Ewing and the NBA players were in 1998 when he famously said, “Sure, we make a lot of money, but we spend a lot, too.”

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