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Home » Is That Kodak Moment Fading?

Is That Kodak Moment Fading?

We search for the more interesting and provocative news and views of the past week…just so you don’t have to.

This week we learn of a faltering founder of film, more ways to edit video, and an easier way to pick music from a favorite provider.

Kodak Stock Struggles: Film to Follow?

Kodak’s foray into new markets still hasn’t delivered much value over the past decades as it shifted towards digital technology and away from its ever disappearing film business. The company has taken numerous restructuring charges, missed financial targets, and has a stock price still in the dumps. It last made an annual profit in 2007.

Now the Rochester-based company saw its stock take a further nosedive after it had to tap its credit line for $160 million. Most of the Rochester-based company’s income now relies on selling inkjet printers, commercial printing and company patents according to the Times’ Andrew Martin. Film, in particular motion picture film, is far down that list.

Another reason for Kodak’s stock to lose more half its value this past Friday–to the lowest price in 38 years–came after the Wall Street Journal reported that it had hired a law firm that specializes in bankruptcy and restructuring. Bids for the company’s valuable portfolio of stocks are expected this month. But currently a sale could be difficult: if it looked like the company faced bankruptcy, buyers would worry about clear title to the many gems in the Kodak patent pool.

How to Forget FCP

Good article on the Post FCP World by Oliver Peters. While Apple steadily gained NLE market share over the past decade, “Apple tossed it all out and in June the industry changed,” says Peters. On his digitalfilms blog, Peters goes on to say “We all know that Apple is quick to abandon legacy technologies, but no one was prepared for a change quite this radical.”

He offers an update on the situation after Apple’s recent upgrade for FCPX–which hasn’t changed the situation markedly, he notes—and advises, “prudent editors and facility owners should be developing an exit strategy from FCP 7 and Final Cut Studio.” Peters ends the article with six steps to take to do just that.

Building Premiere Up

Adobe shows its strategy for building an NLE that can replace Final Cut’s place by the recent announcement that Automatic Duck has partnered with them to bring more robust interchange functionality to Premiere Pro. Although it’s a small company, Automatic Duck has built a solid reputation over the years for building solid software tools that provide an interchange between Avid, Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Pro Tools, Smoke, Quantel and other AAF and OMF-centric apps.

Wes Plate, co-founder of Automatic Duck with his father Henry, will be joining Adobe’s Product Marketing team, which shows that this is more than just another casual business relationship.

NYC Tries to Change Minds

The Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) recently launched a new “digital piracy campaign and consumer awareness initiative” in which teens and young adults are asked to consider the impact of content theft.

A follow-up to the city’s 2010 multimedia campaign “Piracy Doesn’t Work in NYC”, the first leg of the campaign actually debuted in 2007. The emphasis is, of course, the hundreds of thousands of media professionals in the city whose careers revolve around actually getting paid for their labor. The aim of the original campaign was to combat illegal sales and distribution of DVDs. But that format has, of course, quickly dated for the smartphone and iPad equipped young.

The digital piracy campaign launched at recent Creative NYC: Campaign against Content Theft Summit. I assume there was no attempt at irony by choosing the Tweed Courthouse to hold the event, as the building remains a monument funded by one of the city’s most masterful thieves.

Judges for the contest–students are to create PSAs that will somehow convince their compatriots to halt their digital downloading ways–are to include IATSE’s Dan Mahoney and James Schamus of Focus Features.

The idea of cajoling young’ns to stop their copying comes from Sucherman Consulting Group, who concluded that while young people are among the most likely to pirate digital content there is indeed “significant opportunity for education and increased awareness within that age group.”

NYC students can visit StopPiracyinNYC.com where they can enter to “win the opportunity to produce their own creative campaign with the help of a professional production company.”

Flash Goes 3D

Flash as a continuing and viable app for the web gets a boost with 3Defy, a website that uses just-released Flash 11 to add 3D effects to 2D photos ala Photoshop Extended. The site enables users to upload photos that they can then turn into simple 3D pics by roughly defining planes within the photograph and then pushing or pulling to create the effect. Takes a little bit of work to get a decent result, but it shows the continued growth in power apps for the web.

While the 3Defy site might build a business out of this stunt, Adobe keeps at its own knitting by pushing more capable versions of Flash that currently leave Apple’s preferred HTML 5 at the starting line.

The new Flash 11 offers GPU-accelerated 3D graphics rendering, which makes it possible to deliver some pretty sophisticated 3D experiences directly in the browser. But since you can only use a fairly blunt approach on 3Defy’s site when cutting out planes, the app’s actual usefulness is limited.

You can see a YouTube demo by clicking here.

Automation Comes to Editing

Video from smartphones, tablets, and laptops—we’re not counting video cameras yet—proliferates to the point that some 35 hours a minute are uploaded to YouTube alone. So you can imagine there’s a call for more methods, more really, really simple methods, to edit and otherwise manipulate video.

They’re coming. YouTube already provides free apps like GoAnimate, Stupeflix, and Xtranormal to create video even without a camera. Now start up Magisto has a deal too on YouTube’s Create page for its app that automates video editing.

Could it be, should it be any simpler? Users just upload video, select music, append a project title and then click a button. Yes, that’s it. The system searches for what it deems “the interesting parts” and edits those together with the audio. At this point, you’ll not mistake Magisto for a Thelma Schoonmaker effort, but slicker editing apps will certainly be on the way.

Vimeo Moves into Music

If you have use music services regularly, you know it can be a pain dealing with the various interfaces, libraries, and pricing schemes.

Why not have a company that already garners warm-and-fuzzies take over that chore? Well, Vimeo already garners good vibes for its video service and supportive, troll-free community. Now, the Chelsea-based company decided to take on music and sound for postproduction by offering its own simple to use service. Vimeo Music Store offers some 45,000 tracks in this initial release, with a majority cleared by AudioSocket. Not a lot of top, well known tracks in their library though, so some might not be able to find what they need.

But I think many people will be most attracted by its straightforward use and one-stop-shopping.

Pricing is straightforward: Creative Commons tracks are free while the rest go for a few dollars for personal use to perhaps around $100 for commercial license. Other nice touches include easy integration with NLEs and other apps  (FCP7 , Premiere, After Effects, and Pinnacle Studio. FCPX is in the future), integrated licensing and the ability to easily indicate favorite tracks.

About Dan Ochiva

New York City-based journalist and NYCPPNEWS founder Dan Ochiva writes and consults on film, video, and digital media technology.

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Community & Partner Links

NAB Looks Toward In-Person 2021 Show

The National Association of Broadcasters said it has done research that shows there is growing sense that the 2021 NAB Show could be an in-person convention this October.

Not surprisingly, NAB said that the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 will be the biggest influencer (for three in five respondents) in whether to attend an in-person event.

To read the full article on Broadcasting + Cable, click here.

 

Rupert Neve, the Father of Modern Studio Recording, Dies at 94

When the Seattle grunge band Nirvana recorded their breakthrough album, “Nevermind,” at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, Calif., in 1991, they used a massive mixing console created by a British engineer named Rupert Neve.

The Neve 8028 console and others he made had by then become studio staples, hailed by many as the most superior consoles of their kind in manipulating and combining instrumental and vocal signals. They were responsible in great part for the audio quality of albums by groups like Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Grateful Dead, and Pink Floyd.

Read the full obit in the New York Times.

New York City Movie Theaters Can Reopen at Limited Capacity, Gov. Cuomo Says

After nearly a year of closures, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has given movie theaters in New York City permission to reopen at limited capacity starting on March 5.

During his daily press briefing, the Empire State leader said cinemas in the city will be permitted to operate at 25% capacity, with no more than 50 people. Moreover, other safety measures such as masks, social distancing, and heightened sanitizing measures will be required. Last October, New York venues outside of the city were allowed to reopen with similar restrictions.

To read the full article in Variety, click here.

Stimulus Offers $15 Billion in Relief for Struggling Arts Venues

The coronavirus relief package that Congressional leaders agreed to this week includes grant money that many small proprietors described as a last hope for survival.

For the music venue owners, theater producers and cultural institutions that have suffered through the pandemic with no business, the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed on Monday night offers the prospect of aid at last.

To read the full article on The New York Times’ site, click here.

If you want to start production, here’s the latest news from the Mayor’s Office

Phase 4 production guidance is available on the Film Permit website. All production activity, whether it requires a Film Permit or not, must comply with New York Forward Industry Guidance.

For more information see, please refer to the State Department of Health’s Interim Guidance for Media Production During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Please review the guidelines and FAQ before submitting permit applications. The Film Office is operating remotely, so please allow additional time for Film Permit processing.

The above paragraphs contain links to the various FAQ – just mouse over the relevant words.

Nikon to Stop Making Cameras in Japan

Nikon has fallen on hard times as of late as its camera sales have cratered, and now there’s a new indicator of how dire its financial situation is: the company is reportedly pulling the plug on making cameras in Japan after over 70 years of doing so.

To read the full article on Petapixel’s site, click here.

Disney to Close Upstate Blue Sky Studios

Various sources have reported that Disney is in the process of shuttering Blue Sky Studios, the largest animation studio on the East coast. The former 20th Century Fox animation division pulled in $5.9 billion churning out 13 feature films including the Ice Age franchise.

Publications have noted how Disney – which had three animation studios including Pixar and Disney Animation – couldn’t make the case to have these many houses when the pandemic took a toll on the company’s profits.

Some 450 employees will lose their jobs, though some hope to get into one of Disney’s other animation houses.

Here’s Deadline’s report.

Here’s Variety’s report.

Epix Announces ‘Godfather of Harlem’ Season 2 Premiere Date

Epix revealed that the second season of “Godfather of Harlem” will premiere on April 18. Set in 1964, the crime drama series explores the collision of the criminal underworld and civil rights movement. The second season will follow Bumpy Johnson (Forest Whitaker) battling the New York crime families for control of the French Connection, a pipeline for heroin that runs from Marseilles to New York Harbor.

To read the full Variety article, click here.

Sony’s FX3 is a compact $3,900 camera for filmmakers

Sony has announced the FX3. As expected, the camera is essentially an A7S III with features from the company’s Cinema line crammed into a body that looks like the A7C. Its backside-illuminated full-frame sensor has an effective resolution of 10.2-megapixel when shooting video and 15 stops of dynamic range.

To read the full story on Engadget, click here.

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