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« Older Entries | Newer Entries »This Just In: Mel Gibson Is Mean
[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 10, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Saturday, July 10th, 2010Leaked Phone Recording of Mel Gibson Screaming at Oksana Grigorieva
Someone just sent us this audio clip. Not for the faint of heart, nor Mel’s few remaining fans:
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VODO: A Cool New Idea For Distributing & Funding Independent Film
[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 5, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Monday, July 5th, 2010Watch out Hollywood. The future is arriving.
I have a number of friends who derive their livelihood from the mainstream, Hollywood-centric film industry, so if you find me dead in a ditch soon, it may be because of some of the things I’m about to say. In much the same way that record labels created their own demise a decade ago by desperately trying to hold on to a juicy business model that let them charge twenty bucks for a twenty minute CD (by doing things like suing customers and artists alike), the floundering and litigation-addicted film industry has been doing much the same thing for a while. They’ve used lawsuits, melodramatic anti-piracy clips, and distorted claims about how piracy has stolen billions in wages and thousands of jobs from Hollywood. Even the US General Accounting Office has called their bluff. So while it may have taken a few years for the indy music scene to evolve into the hodgepodge of profitable distribution channels that it is today, in the end we have more great music – and at a better price – than we’ve had in decades. And it seems that price is at most a dollar a song. So watch out Hollywood. Your days of multimillion dollar productions are numbered. And your demise will be at the hands of clever ventures like VODO, an ingenious new funding and distribution plan that coordinates the world’s largest torrent trackers to distribute artists’ films, and then facilitates funding them. You get a high-quality and original viewing experience for free, the artist gets massive distribution and a source of revenue based on perceived value, because you pay as much as you feel like paying, if anything at all. VODO has also partnered with MOFILM for a contest with over $100,000 in prizes. VODO’s currently highlighted project is a “hard sci-fi” series called Pioneer One. The series pilot cost just $6,000, which was raised through the micro-funding platform Kickstarter. Pioneer One was produced by the same team that created Vodo’s biggest success to date, a film called Lionshare. Having watched both Lionshare and the Pioneer One pilot, I have a lot of enthusiasm for where this could go. In spite of some occasionally wobbly acting, writing, or production in both projects, the material is largely pretty solid, and VODO has many other films to explore. All for whatever you feel like paying for them. Check out the trailers for Lionshare and Pioneer One below. Read the rest of this entry »
This Fall’s Blockbuster Horror Flick: The Social Network
[ Comments Off ]Posted on June 29, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010There are rumors of a Mafia Wars movie too. We hear if you get four friends to join you, admission is free.
I have to admit that when I first heard that they were making a movie about Facebook, my comment was “@Sony: omg ur jk, RITE?”, then I looked for the “Unlike” button, forgetting that real life doesn’t have one. Then I imagined going to see it. The theater would of course require you to log in for admittance. Since you’d be so embarrassed that you were actually going to see it, you’d try a made-up name, and they’d have the gall to accuse you of using up a made-up name, so you’d give up and use your real one. Before the opening scene even began, the film would stop repeatedly, asking you if any of your friends were in the theater, and tossing names and faces on the screen, asking if you knew them. Finally things would get rolling, and for a while you’d really be amazed at how they captured little slices of your friends’ lives for you to watch. That is, until the movie Mafia Wars started appearing on the screen in a little crawl, because your friends were watching it in the next theater and had forgotten to hide it in their settings. And until you realized how banal everyone’s existence was when you could watch it unfold right before your eyes. All the same, you’d walk out of the theater six hours later, saying “DAMN. I only meant to watch an HOUR of it!” You’d swear you’d never watch the thing again as long as you live. Then you’d be disturbed to find yourself suddenly sitting in the theater the very next day. Of course, that would all be much more fun than what you’re going to get if you actually do go watch the movie; the only thing more horrifyingly dull than watching a movie about two annoying nerds
Sloppy Seconds: Short Films Under One Minute
[ Comments Off ]Posted on June 23, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010It took over 2000 seconds to locate these five, ten, and fifteen second film sites. Don’t expect us to take another few thousand to actually REVIEW them too.
There’s a feeble irony in the fact that it will take you longer to read this than it takes to watch any of the short films referenced. Take solace in the fact that if you do read this, you’ll be spared the endless tens of seconds that I subjected myself to in order to spare you some of the same agony. As an attention deficient media sieve, I’ve previously mentioned my obsession with short format visual media, whether as tradtional short film, TV commercials, or obscure animation. I’ve been especially busy lately, so I thought maybe it’s time to push the envelope and see if there are any REALLY short films out there. I started small, with 5 Second Films. Clever idea, but we’ll have to see if they manage to bump up the quality of the content. If I’m going to spend a minute of my life perusing your five second films, I want at least four scintillating seconds packed into every feature, not just a clever gag. On a slightly more arty note, we have Ten Second Film. I guess that extra five seconds really gives you some room to expand on a theme. I didn’t find any 11 or 13 second film sites (although I did find a 93 minute film called 13 Seconds
Sure. FarmVille’s All Fun And Games. Until Somebody Makes A Billion Dollars.
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on June 8, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010Game sales have been outstripping music and movie sales for some time, but the real money may be in imaginary money.
If the entertainment industry is still wondering where that billion dollars in lost sales went last year, I think I have an answer for them. FarmVille. Yes, laugh at your Facebook friends as their lonely cows meander through the pasture of your Facebook feed, but Zynga, the developers of the game, banked a cool $270 million last year, and are looking forward to topping ONE BILLION DOLLARS this year. All because your do-nothing crackhead friends couldn’t find anything better to do than plant imaginary corn. But there’s the rub. It wasn’t slacker crackheads that were playing. It was Midwestern housewives. At least that’s how David Laux, global executive for games and interactive entertainment at IBM was quoted in that article. While the real demographic for the boom in this kind of game isn’t literally “Midwestern housewives”, it certainly is a new kind of user, and a new kind of development process. Not surprisingly, the same “traditional” game developers who enjoyed the kind of growth that has led to game sales outstripping movie sales in many countries are a little upset that a company like Zynga is creating the kind of revenue streams that it is, especially with the kinds of games (Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc) and user engagement strategies they utilize. Some developers resort to a bit of hyperbole to express their concern for the “purity” of the industry by saying things like “metrics-driven design and extrinsic rewards for in-game actions could lead to a future of designing shitty games that you have to pay people to play“, when what they may really mean is “dang, I wish I’d thought of that“. There’s no question that this new game market is going to be a big thing for a while, but what I find almost more interesting (and which I touched on earlier this year) is that there’s a second billion dollar industry spinning off of this all, one involving transferring your imaginary money between these booming games and social networks. I personally have never understood the “hook” with games like FarmVille; frankly Facebook itself is like a game to me. But what will catch my attention is an opportunity to get in early on a growing economy, even a virtual one. See you in ProfitsVille!