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Home » Shazam! for Interactive Entertainment

Shazam! for Interactive Entertainment

The Past Week in Review: June 27, 2011

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

Image: The superhero Captain Marvel owes his power to the ancient sorcerer Shazam. The company Shazam plans to bring interactive TV to the mainstream. You decide if it’s magic or not.

This week we look at a software app that came too soon, worries about a lack of courage, and hardware that just might solve your production problems.

Apple Got It Wrong….or Not.

If you ever read sites dedicated to post production, you’d be hard-pressed to miss over this past week the controversy kicked up over the release of Apple’s Final Cut X. This completely rewritten version of the program has unleashed more strongly divided controversy then any Apple product in many years.

Version X has been called everything from a revolutionary rethinking of nonlinear editing to iMovie Pro, and thus a stab in the back to professionals who have staked their businesses on what they had imagined was an app that would change slowly enough to accommodate their businesses.

In Filmmaker magazine, David Leitner acknowledged the rough spots but praised the daring vision of the new version, telling magazine editor Scott Macaulay

“I’ve had problems with FCP X too, but since when is the unfamiliar a comfortable ride?”

David praised Gary Adcock’s Macworld review of the new software. I’d agree. Adcock, who has run Chicago’s Final Cut Pro user group, offers up an in-depth look that covers the most salient features. The writer says that Apple is breaking new ground, and that the app challenges the “whole mindset of what it means to be a working professional video editor.”

The needs of the professional editor are just what author Danny Greer has in mind in his article at the Premiumbeat blog. The article, headed Final Cut Pro X: The Missing Features, specifically lists those items that were missing in action in the latest version including no XML import and the inability to open projects saved in previous FCP versions.

If you want an extremely detailed point-by-point interpretation of what FCP X can do, head over to Richard Harrington’s site. The long-time editor, author, teacher, trainer gives an even-keeled review, which is much needed. Harrington takes the whole app apart and reconciles what a number of top critics have said so far. Very useful if you stay with it.

In the days of analog television, Long Island-based Chyron long remained one of the most profitable character generator manufacturers precisely because of its slow pace in updating and changing its product line. While other character generator manufacturers would badmouth the company for its old-school product, Chyron knew it was more important for its users–especially the producers of news and sports programming–to have a stable, slowly changing product.

With that stability, producers always knew they could find someone to operate the Chyron–its name soon became synonymous with lower third character generation–in whatever town they were in. Know the market that you want to have buying your product I suppose is the point of the story. Apple has made just such a decision in regards to the professional editing community.

Entrepreneurial Filmmaking

In a refreshing bit of straight talk at this year’s Cannes International Festival of Creativity, Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg made critical comments about the level of creativity–or the lack of same–that bedeviled Hollywood today. As he is quoted in this AdAge article, Katzenberg said that the moviemaking business was offering the public the “worst and least creative work product in a decade or more.”

Meanwhile, Filmmaker’s Scott Macaulay takes note of this talk by Graham Taylor at the Los Angeles Film Festival on independent films past and future. Taylor calls the current state of independent film entrepreneurial film, and illustrates how he finances a film: by shooting 10 minutes worth and cutting together a trailer to present in an RV parked at Sundance. Cocktails included.

Disagreements over copyright enforcement heat up as high-tech entrepreneurs and investors recently signed a letter urging members of Congress to reject the PROTECT IP Act.

According to this article in Ars Technica, the PROTECT IP Act (or PIPA) is being pushed by Hollywood and the recording industry. The law would establish a blacklist of “rogue sites” and ISPs and other intermediaries would be forced for the first time to block access to them.

Tough Summer for 3D?

We’re still seeing a small yet constant stream of negative comments on the prospects of 3D film. In this Times article entitled As 3-D Falls From Favor, Director of ‘Transformers’ Tries to Promote It, Michael Bay is portrayed as undertaking a charm offensive to help push his new summer blockbuster Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which debuts this week.

In this AdAge article, “comedies and dramas filmed in the old-fashioned two-dimensional format” such as Fast Five and Bridesmaids are said to be leading the summer box office over 3D.

Jeff Bock, an analyst with Los Angeles-based Exhibitor Relations Co. blames the “3-D rush jobs we’ve had over the past two years” for the consumer’s lack of enthusiasm.

Gearhead Time

Production websites are kicking the tires on both new hardware and all the gear that was introduced at April’s NAB convention but is finally shipping in quantity.

Website Digitalarts Online offers what it claims as a world exclusive report detailing an impromptu test of apples thunderbolt technology. Thunderbolt, a high-speed port being built into new Macs that replace FireWire connections, offers up to a theoretical a top speed of 10 Gb per second.

At a Final Cut Pro Supermeet in Kensington, London, the test featured an external LaCie The Little Big Disk RAID array (striped as raid zero, but what the heck it’s just a test) connecting to a MacBook Pro. Using AJA System Test configured for transferring 16GB of 4K frames, the average read speed was an astonishing 835.5MBps with an average write speed of 353.1MBps.

Compare that to an average desktop systems fitted with a RAID array which might deliver speeds of 83.9MBps (read) and 77.2MBps (write), and you can see why this new technology will loom large for new edit systems, even those based around notebooks like the MacBook Pro.

David Leitner offers a useful review of AJA’s Ki Pro Mini, an Apple ProRes recorder/player. Calling it like having “an HDCAM deck in the palm of your hand”, Leitner sees a future where such small decks, as well as its larger sibling the Ki Pro, will replace expensive HDCAM decks at film festivals and other venues that need top quality playback at prices that are much, much lower than that of Sony’s product.

The Abel Cine blog offers a useful list of lenses and accessories for Sony’s new NEX-FS100 camera. The single sensor camera-which prices around $6000-is attracting much attention; some spot it as a less expensive yet still capable device that compares favorably with Sony’s more expensive F3 and the RED One.

The Future of All Media?

Blogger Phil Leigh forecasts a future in which all media –whether print, audio, or video–will become interactive. Leigh is responding to the funding of Shazam by top venture capitalists to create “a form of interactive television advertising based upon the company’s music recognition technology.” Liz Gannes at All Things Digital goes into more detail here.

About Dan Ochiva

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

Community & Partner Links

How Sony’s New Virtual Sound Technology Can Change How We Hear Films

Kami Asgar and Jessica Parks are post-production heavyweights who work with major studios, namely Sony. As a sound designer (Asgar) and as a post executive (Parks), their collective resume touches on everything from Apocalypto to Grandma’s Boy to Venom.

Parks has recently shifted her focus from supervisor to hands-on sound design, and we talk about how it’s never too late to pivot on your career path and find the thing you love doing wherever you are in life.

Click on this link to read the rest of the article on No Film School’s site.

NJ – Governor Murphy signs $14B Incentive Program Bill – the NJ Economic Recovery Act of 2020

 Film tax credits — amending existing programs to include provisions for so-called New Jersey film partners and New Jersey film-lease partners and allowing an additional $200 million of tax credits annually over 13 years.

Click this link if you want to read the full article on the Lexology site. http://bit.ly/35NtDx6

Film Commish announces date for production restart

In her December 18, 2020 news update, MOME Commissioner Anne del Castillo announced that the Film Office is now accepting permit applications for production activity that begins on July 27th.

She also announced awards now (Awkwafina) and more. To read all of the Film Commish’s bloggy sort of news column, 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.

NVIDIA Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

NVIDIA Research has invented a way to use AI to dramatically reduce video call bandwidth while simultaneously improving quality

What the researchers have achieved has remarkable results: by replacing the traditional h.264 video codec with a neural network, they have managed to reduce the required bandwidth for a video call by an order of magnitude. In one example, the required data rate fell from 97.28 KB/frame to a measly 0.1165 KB/frame – a reduction to 0.1% of required bandwidth.

To read the rest of this article on Petapixel, click this link.

 

 

 

Union Health Plan Dodges Film Workers’ Suit Over Virus Relief

Law360 (October 9, 2020, 5:22 PM EDT) — The Motion Picture Industry Health Plan’s board can’t be sued under ERISA for allegedly flouting its duties when it relaxed plan rules in response to COVID-19, a California federal judge has ruled, nixing a proposed class action filed by two cinematographers who still couldn’t qualify for benefits.

In an order entered Thursday, U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner granted the board of directors’ motion to dismiss Greg Endries and Dee Nichols’ Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit accusing board members of breaching their duty to treat all plan participants fairly.

Endries and Nichols, members of Local 600 of the International Cinematographers Guild, said in July that the board left them and others “out in the cold” in its attempts to address the problems COVID-19 caused for plan participants.

But Judge Klausner agreed with the board’s contention that the case, which alleged a fiduciary breach, should be tossed because plan administrators don’t act as fiduciaries when they amend health care plans.

Read the full article on the Law360 site by clicking here.

Russo Brothers Received Close to $50 Million From Saudi Bank

Anthony Russo and Joseph Russo photographed at the PMC Studio in Los Angeles for the Variety Playback Podcast.

The Russo brothers, directors of the all-time top grossing film “Avengers: Endgame,” quietly secured a roughly $50 million cash infusion for their production company AGBO from Saudi Arabia earlier this year, multiple sources tell Variety.

In a deal brokered and closed at the beginning of the pandemic, the Russos received the investment from an undisclosed Saudi bank in exchange for a minority stake in the brothers’ Los Angeles-based shop.

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