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...Media industry have failed (You know it, they know it) and it's going down...

What the hell are you talking about??

Most of the articles I read show cable continues to grow despite pressure from "cord cutting" and Netflix. The Hollywood Reporter puts cable sub counts at an all-time high after the first quarter of 2011: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/analyst-pay-tv-subs-hit-185858

He threw water in her face multiple times, smashed her sunglasses, and combined verbal abuse with being physical intimidation. In other words, he threatened her and broke her stuff. These things are illegal.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/canadian-comic-fined-crude-lesbian-181553

Net Neutrality is simple, and the analogy I like to use is this:
Your ISP is like UPS and FEDEX, they simply deliver the goods you order on a timely and consistent fashion. How would you like it if UPS rang the door bell and said, sorry, there will be a surcharge for this delivery from Bob's Spoons since you went over your package limit for the month, but if you buy your spoons from the UPS store there will not be a surcharge.
That's Net Neutrality in a nutshell.

But hold the horses! How many times do you hears these words "From the producers of Friends..."? I strongly believe in the not to distant future it is more likely that movie and television producers will simply offer their content on their own "gateway" (website/application) for modest fees, ala the 99-cent eBook's and hit singles, than fork over control to major network and movie studios as it is down now. Consider how much money a studio or producer makes when Netflix streams a movie? I don't know the answer, but my guess is not much. Would they rather make a paltry 2-3 cents an episode streaming via Netflix, or perhaps 99 selling their episode online from their own gateway? Take a hit show that costs $100 million to produce 11 episodes and has 300 million global viewers. Using my model that's $200 million dollars in profit, instead of the $6-$10 million of 'chump change' they might get out of Netlix that the content makers so disdain.

In other words, the current model works like this: Content Producer -> Major Studio AND/OR Content Distributor -> Content Deliverer.

My model works like this: Content Producer AND Distributor -> Content Deliverer.

That battle, no matter the outcome of the Contemporary Providers vs. Distributors vs. Deliverers, will be short lived. Once "The producers of Friends", or more likely their 21st century descendants who manage to get investments outside Hollywood, wake up and start selling their hit show on their own website (and financing it outside the major studios) AT&T literally won't have any 'traditional' content to deliver (160 channels of 24/7x365 'noise'). Well, they'll try... but you can either pay to watch crummy AT&T produced shows, or subscribe to your favorite show, or site, for a couple bucks a month. The analogy now becomes... "I'm going to charge you more for Internet Service because I can." And the war transforms from Net Neutrality to good ole' Utility Monopolies and Regulation, which takes us all the back to square one... "Why the FRACK do we legally license Internet Monopolies when anyone can do it better/cheaper/faster if they were allowed."

I'm an idealist, obviously, but I believe that these entrenched business models will not go quietly. But you can't fight the tide, and the writing is on the wall... JIMHO.

Most fiction involves real places, and almost all involves a real species, i.e., human beings.

Neither places nor the abstract concept "species" have any feelings to hurt. Las Vegas per se doesn't care how CSI portrays it, even if the mayor and the Tourism Board do care.

It's only lying if you say things that are untrue with the intent that someone reading them believes them to be true ...

I'm with you to there.

... and that will not be true of anything which specifically calls itself "fiction."

But it's not being called simply "fiction" pure and simple like you suggest it is. The author is calling it "historical fiction" and including one character who was a real person and five others who are fictional. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/thr-esq/jrr-tolkien-estate-threatens-lawsuit-101528

Stephen Hilliard is going to court in an attempt to release "Mirkwood, A Novel About J.R.R. Tolkien," to be published by Cruel Rune. The 450-page book is described as taking place from 1970 through near-present day in the United States and features six characters -- five fictional and Tolkien himself.

Obviously, the part that's "historical" is not the five characters who are totally made up. The intent is clearly to make stuff up about Tolkien and give the impression that at least some of it is "historical."

Not one is pretending it is factual.

If, as Hilliard claims, his work of fiction is "an exercise in 'literary criticism'" then the fictional events must be intended to say something about Tolkien the man, specifically about his character -- something which Hilliard believes is real and true and significant about Tolkien's character or saying it wouldn't amount to critiquing Tolkien's works, it would just be telling a yarn. And if any of what Hilliard is saying is insulting then that is getting awfully close to the definition of slander: untrue, insulting claims about a person in print.

"Hilliard hints that the book will take issue with the lack of female characters in Tolkien's works, including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series."

The right way to do that is in an essay, actually critiquing "the (perceived) lack of female characters in Tolkien's works" not by making things up about the person.

I mean, what makes you think that *you* have the right to include 'real' people into your fake fictional works ?

Indeed. Mixing fact and fiction is quaintly known in civilized societies as lying. Making up a genre called "historical fiction" doesn't change the simple fact that Hilliard is being dishonest -- saying things about a real person that he knows are untrue. If his sincere intent was "literary criticism" as his lawyers now claim, then he would have written an essay, not a novel. They're entirely different categories of prose and I hope the court can appreciate that "fictionalizing" events of real people's lives is not literary critique, it's literally lying. And if any of the made-up events are in any way insulting, it's slander.

Very true... Mod parent up, please.... ?

I mean, what makes you think that *you* have the right to include 'real' people into your fake fictional works ?

Indeed. Mixing fact and fiction is quaintly known in civilized societies as lying. Making up a genre called "historical fiction" doesn't change the simple fact that Hilliard is being dishonest -- saying things about a real person that he knows are untrue. If his sincere intent was "literary criticism" as his lawyers now claim, then he would have written an essay, not a novel. They're entirely different categories of prose and I hope the court can appreciate that "fictionalizing" events of real people's lives is not literary critique, it's literally lying. And if any of the made-up events are in any way insulting, it's slander.

Slander is not. The court will have to decide whether making up fictions about the real author deserves the legal protections granted for literary critique, parody and the like.

Stephen Hilliard is going to court in an attempt to release "Mirkwood, A Novel About J.R.R. Tolkien," to be published by Cruel Rune. The 450-page book is described as taking place from 1970 through near-present day in the United States and features six characters -- five fictional and Tolkien himself. "Mirkwood" is portrayed as both a piece of fiction as well as an exercise in "literary criticism."

Maybe you can already tell, in my opinion, historical fiction is idiotic. Honest people try to be clear about whether we're talking about real, factual events or about fiction. Hilliard seems to be trying to do the opposite. The purpose of the First Amendment is to protect political speech, particularly criticism of the government. Telling lies about others then hiding behind "freedom of speech" is not what the Founders meant.

From the Hollywood Reporter article:

Stephen Hilliard is going to court in an attempt to release "Mirkwood, A Novel About J.R.R. Tolkien," to be published by Cruel Rune. The 450-page book is described as taking place from 1970 through near-present day in the United States and features six characters -- five fictional and Tolkien himself. "Mirkwood" is portrayed as both a piece of fiction as well as an exercise in "literary criticism." Hilliard hints that the book will take issue with the lack of female characters in Tolkien's works, including "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" series.

If you want to do literary criticism then critique the actual literature. Wannabes write "historical fiction" when they want to make a quick couple million slandering the name of somebody who earned his fame.

Netflix would stream everything if they could. It is a licensing issue. See the original hollywood reporter article, not the stub linked from the summary:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-execs-privately-netflix-71957

The Hollywood Reporter on "Cornered!": "No, we've never heard of it either".

That's bad. The Hollywood Reporter tracks almost everything Hollywood is doing, in more detail than you need unless you're in the industry. If their people haven't heard of it, it's unknown. There's one entry in THR's database: "MPAA ratings: Jan. 20, 2010", where The Hollywood Reporter listed the MPAA's rating decisions for the week. (It got an "R".) So the producers sent a copy in for rating and paid the fee.

Some DVDs are available for remainder prices on Amazon.

It's going to be hard for the producers of this turkey to demonstrate that they lost any money through downloading. They may have trouble finding anyone who actually viewed the download.

When is he going to sue Skynet?

Possibly after the sale of Skynet closes. (The Terminator was a Hemdale film distributed by Orion Pictures, which got bought by MGM Studios. As of a few days ago, Spyglass and Lionsgate are bidding on MGM. I'm rooting for Lionsgate, if only because of MGM's mascot.)

Everything I thought I knew about civil law tells me that this is not a suit that you're allowed to file. Any lawyers around care to weigh in? Are you allowed to sue no one in particular?

If you read the article (the real one, not the article about the article that's linked in the summary), this has been done before by UMG, and apparently they were successful. So now AEG is giving a try, too.

I know, I know, sarcasm, but I just couldn't help think of this:

http://livefeed.hollywoodreporter.com/2009/12/fox-news-120-have-opinion-on-climate-research-pic.html

I owe you a link for that... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i8b177543696059c9d4a1cc26fac88778

According to an article in TechDirt, this intervention motion by Mr. Garcia represents a changed attitude on his part, and that his initial reaction to Mr. Fairey's painting was admiration

Despite the major news-papers' best efforts, the bottom has fallen off of whatever container was holding support for Obama. Perhaps, Mr. Garcia is one of the remorseful buyers of the "we are the ones we've been waiting for" snake oil, and, somewhat literally, wants his money back?

Tell you what... Give us back the hundred years of culture you stole from us and you can have this for a reasonable time -- say, 15 years. Keep the position that you stole that longer term fair and square and we can't have it back, and you'll find most people don't care what the law says. You steal from the people. You steal from the artists. And you think people won't react by treating you like a greedy little troll with no entitlement to intellectual property rights?

I think what works for consumers most likely -- and this has to be tested, frankly -- is bundles. I think you have to figure out what are the right bundles that people buy and what's contained in that bundle. For example, you could have -- and I'm making this up entirely -- you could have a New York bundle, and that could consist of various papers or publications that are relevant to the audience in New York, and you could make that all, potentially, a bundle to a consumer at one price.

For what it's worth, he also made this statement:

I went from paying $14 to The Wall Street Journal to paying $10 to Amazon. Now the splits there, and I think this is relatively well known, are very, very much in favor of Amazon. So I became very much less valuable to The Wall Street Journal. That's part one. Part two is they don't know I exist. I went from being someone who's their subscriber to being someone who is an Amazon subscriber, which The Wall Street Journal has no visibility back to and cannot manage that customer relationship. . . . So they've lost both the customer management and, trust me, the lion's share of the economics.

You know I hate to be voice of calm reason, folks but this is all the original source reported:

Asked specifically about the future of online video joint venture Hulu, which is currently advertising-supported, he said it "is an environment for premium content." Pointing to the popularity of iPhone applications, he added: "We're seeing the beginning of a very strong app economy."

From there, you can trace a very hilarious wave of the telephone game from blog to blog of people slowly blowing it out of proportion as it's put together that this guy is talking about paid subscriptions and he's in charge of Hulu therefore Hulu must be becoming a paid subscription service.

After seeing this movie, anyone who thinks it's a turkey is either a moron or saw a different movie than I did

I guess lots of people saw a different movie than you.

This movie deserves the videogame it got.

"Try to think like a large business for a sec,okay? You are the head of a large film business. You have vaults full of movies you think are "old crap" because they didn't make a profit when first released and don't have a gimmick to sell it with, like "It's a Wonderful Life" which you can repackage every holiday season. Now why on earth would you waste all that money to preserve things which you couldn't figure out how to make a profit on when it was new? The correct answer is you wouldn't. Because the shareholders only care about history as far as the quarterly earnings report and it will be very hard to justify such a capital expense when you don't know how to profitize it. So you let it set for the next CEO, who lets it set for the next guy,etc. Only problem is one day somebody opens the can and all you have is dust. Bye Bye movie."

This is my last reply on this subject, as I don't think you're likely to be swayed by any actual facts.

I do own a business. And I come from a family of business owners. We may not be a mega-corporation, but many of the principles are the same. My terminology might be different, but the concepts are essentially right here.

You have two major kinds of revenue streams. You have your primary revenue streams, and your secondary revenue streams. To take a big business publishing example:

Primary revenue stream - Stephen King novels
Secondary revenue streams - midlist novels and older reprints

The primary revenue stream is the "sugar daddy" - the revenue stream that essentially pays for most of the company. But that's not the only revenue - what happens if the primary falters? So you have the secondary as well, which is more of a shotgun approach. You can afford to have the secondaries do less than stellar sales, because of the primary. And, the secondary provides the safety net you need if the primary goes down.

Applying that to companies like Universal and Paramount:

Primary revenue streams - current blockbusters
Secondary revenue streams - DVDs and older films

Now, you're talking as though the older films are simply deemed unprofitable and let to die. But that's not true - there's an active restoration effort in place across the board because there's a very large market for these older films. Film restoration is very lucrative work right now.

Here's an article on it from the Hollywood Reporter: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2053173

Here's a more recent article by the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7525143.stm

And here's a Wikipedia entry on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_preservation

Now, I have to wonder a few things about this film preservation society's "statistics" - what was their source? When were they gathered? Was it before the restoration effort began or after? And to what degree is it propaganda? After all, it's a lot easier to get donations when people are afraid of losing their film history, rather than pointing out that film studios are working their asses off to preserve their libraries.

In this entire conversation, you have been functioning in half-truths, pointing to something vaguely alarming and declaring that a business model is dead, or that evil corporations are behind it, without bothering to look at the entire picture. Even in this most recent post, you've tried to hold up the fact that it costs $40,000 to fill up an iPod as some great alarming truth...but it's $40,000 at $.99 per song. What it actually means is that an iPod can hold a huge amount of music, not that the price per song is unreasonable.

Try this one on for size. Try reading the Berne Convention. Try reading up on Eldred vs. Ashcroft, and WHY the case got demolished on every

Globally BluRay is nowhere near there.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i9a3650f4bf2de2993bbb018678714194

Sales in the first half of 2008 are up 3.3% compared with the same period last year, thanks to the increased level of consumer choice provided by high-definition formats, the BVA said, adding that Blu-ray Discs are up 506% year to date and have a 1.2% share in the total market.

In the US it's doing better, but it's still only 5%

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/17789

But here's where the bad news starts. Nielsen just released its most recent Blu-ray vs. DVD disc sales figures, and if you're a Blu fan, the numbers are daunting. For the week ending April 13, DVD enjoyed a whopping 95 percent of the total disc sales market, leaving a paltry five percent for Blu-ray. Ouch.

I haven't seen any BluRay players or disks in Taiwan or Korea. Loads of upsampling DVDs and massive LCD screens though. I can see it ending up like Laserdisk - high quality but low volume and expensive.

I guess we'd better hope voting records don't mean much, as it seems Biden is a firm friend of the *AA's

NEW YORK -- Joe Biden may have made his name in foreign relations in 32 years in the Senate, but his efforts against piracy have won him respect in Hollywood.

Biden was named Saturday as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's running mate. The Delaware senator has got a long list of credentials, including chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, membership on the Senate Judiciary Committee and experience on the world stage lacking in the top of the ticket. But the 64-year-old Scranton, Pa., native has been a strong advocate for U.S. intellectual property rights and an ardent soldier in the fight against piracy.

As a founding member of the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus, Biden has helped the lead the fight against countries such as China, Russia, Mexico and India that need stronger copyright protections.

"When somebody holds you up on the street and takes your wallet, we call it robbery," Biden said in May 2007. "And when somebody steals your idea and creation, we call it theft, plain and simple." The MPA has lauded the work of the anti-piracy caucus as being essential to motivating the government to action.

(From http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i67f2ad037eba0dd6e4821ce39ce827a3?imw=Y)

"Images from the two projectors overlap, so in a sense, technically speaking, it's 2K resolution," says Brian Bonnick, the company's executive vp technology.

From here.

It competes for shelf space, back panel connections and room on the power strip.

It competes with the services of your cable or internet provider.

Time-Warner owns Harry Potter. Why should it let Blockbuster in on the action?

It duplicates the functionality already built into your DVR, video game console, computer and home media server.

I'd not be surprised to see the same functionality built into the stand-alone Blu-Ray player, the HT receiver, or the HDTV itself.

Denon builds a Rhapsody subscription-compatible Internet radio player into its high end HT components today. Plug in a USB drive and you are more than halfway there.

No reason why the independent hardware manufacturer shouldn't let you purchase a la carte. From Amazon. The BBC. Disney and so on.

Fortunately for fidelity buffs, The Beatles' management announced two years ago that the songs are being remastered from the original tapes before being launched on iTunes. On the other hand, how much of that subtlety will come through in a lossy, compressed sound file played over crappy laptop speakers or ear buds?

He made the same basic argument a few years ago with the original Xbox launch of "Oddworld III: Fish in Wheelchairs"

"Xbox is the future, consoles are the thing, PCs aren't the right platform, blahblahblah." Then he announced that the game was going to be Xbox only.

Spit right in the faces of those of us who had supported his first two games, and were drooling over the trailers of Scrabs stampeding across the plains for the upcoming title.

The game was critically acclaimed, but by that point, I didn't care. The Xbox club was nothing compared to PCs, and that was back in the day when anyone could play pc games, you just needed a CDrom and almost any video card., and I certainly wasn't going to buy an Xbox for one game, so I lost out.

Turned out well for him too. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000884458

Good points, although I'd start by pointing out that there are a number of games that are unique to each console.

- Saint's Row 2 is due out for both consoles at the same time. If you've loved the first one so much that you've "played it to death", the second might be enjoyable.

- I'd suggest getting Viva Pinata for Windows. You'll have no problems with this DRM download nonsense, and be ale to use your existing controllers if you have to send your 360 in for repairs, or decide to upgrade the model. I'd also suggest checking out Snakeball and PixelJunk Monsters on the PS3. I'm not offering these as "apples to apples" replacements for Viva Pinata. Both just seem like they might fit the bill for "fun, quirky, multiplayer" that you're looking for.

- Halo3 is a fun game. You're right, it is an MS exclusive. I'd look at Warhawk for fun "battlefield" type play, or Resistance:Fall of Man for more gritty multiplayer. Both support 32 players per match (with Resistance 2 announced to support 40). VideoChat, and Multiplayer gaming are also thrown in "free".

- The XBox 360 Pro retails for $350 and includes a free headset, a 20GB HardDrive and one month of Gold (VideoChat and Multiplayer Gameplay).

- The 40GB PlayStation 3 retails for $400 and includes a 40GB HardDrive, built-in WiFi, a "lifetime" of Gold features, and a Blu-Ray drive. So I'd hardly call the $50 bucks a huge difference.

- As for choosing sides in a "format war", according to an article from the Hollywood Reported even Toshiba is just about ready to admit HD-DVD is dead and Blu-Ray is the winner, so I don't see how getting a Blu-Ray drive, essentially for either $50, or "Free" with the console.

You're more than welcome to pass, and I appreciate that you spent the time to consider your options.

You certainly have the right to

Probably because it was canceled.

Sorry bro, I think it's Canceled
Too bad. I really liked that show too.

It seems that you do not know that bullshit you pull out of your ass doesn't fly just because you say so.

Study results: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003220685

Included summary for those like yourself with learning disabilities:

"Teenagers still comprise the largest chunk of the active gamer universe at 48 million, followed by players in the 18-24 age range (17.5 million). About 15 million active gamers are 45 or older."

"It seems that you do not know that the largest age group of gamers is 40+. And that their sex is female."

Source this please, because everything I've found says you've misunderstood the report.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003220685

"While women are dominant among online gamers, men still outnumber women in the overall video game space by more than 2-to-1 (70%-30%)."

Satellite and cable are how people get their TV fix nowadays because of the variety and quality of signal. Plus the fed are going to force everyone to go digital come 2009.

She won the Campbell award for Best New Writer with her first Temeraire book, "His Majesty's Dragon". It's basically a Horatio Hornblower book with dragons and interesting social commentary. Highly recommended.

The fun part is that Peter Jackson has optioned for the movie rights. The book(s) would really make a great adventure film(s).

agreed .. digging at the imdb entry for Speed Racer reveals the Sony F-23 which was unveiled last year with a japanese spec sheet here. The only major camera innovation i've seen in hollywood recently is the 3ality stuff who have probably upgraded their rig to use the latest Sony CineAlti. Done correctly you should have multiple images layered like the old disney cartoon/cell techniques to give an almost 3-D effect on a layered screen without the need for 3-D glasses .. (it looks pretty cool if you've ever seen it) .. but if you don't know what you're looking at i could see where someone just says that it just looks like it's all in focus due the crispness of the image that better reflects what we can naturally see than a typically transposed camera shot

And Yu-Gi-Oh, the Movie is in production. From Warner Brothers, makers of Pokemon, the Movie.

(Major idea shortage in Hollywood. Too many movies this year were either sequels or adaptations of successes in other media. The comic book genre is being mined out; it started at Superman, and bottomed at the Silver Surfer. We're now down to trading card movies and toy doll movies. The better ideas in game movies have been done. Effects movies have maxed out; with current CG technology you can put anything on the screen, so nobody is impressed. Expect more whining by the MPAA that theater attendance is down due to "piracy". The problem is ennui, not piracy.)

That's why the terrestrial stations don't pay this "performance royalty." They're the "good guys."

You may not have noticed, but the performance royalty groups are trying to go after terrestrial radio stations now too. It's possible that they never liked radio's "free ride".

Link

Wow. 47,000 sales. Truly amazing. Clearly Blu-Ray has won.

Of course, Cars sold 5,000,000 DVDs in 2 days . The direct-to-DVD movie American Pie Presents: Band Camp sold over 1,000,000 copies in its initial week. (Sorry I can't find anything newer; studios seem pretty secretive about these numbers.)

Conclusion: If you're looking for a "winner", DVD continues to crush both Blu-Ray and HD DVD without even noticing. The Blu-Ray and HD DVD numbers are minor and insignificant. Nothing useful can be deduced from these numbers. Declaring one a "winner" over another based on this sort of data is foolish. When one or the other starts selling a million of copies of a movie in a week, I'll pay more attention.

CBS was nuts to cancel Jericho.

1) With 9.5 million viewers it ranked 48 out of 142 of all programs. This includes stints against American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. Also this does NOT include web-based viewership, which is an integral part of this show. Total number of actual eyes most likely puts it in the top 25. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_displa y/television/features/e3ifbfdd1bcb53266ad8d9a71cad 261604f

2) Two major case studies are showing that this is not "just about Jericho". http://copywriteink.blogspot.com/search/label/jeri cho and http://find-the-boots.blogspot.com/ What we are seeing is a paradigm shift between Old Media and New Media. The core essence of which is that modern technology is rendering Nielsen rating obsolete, and that successful shows like Jericho are tapping into additional resources that change it from a 42 minute a week stint on the couch into a week long web-based multi-media interactive experience with the creators and peer to peer.

3) There is a lot of resistance by non-fans to other "save my show" movements because of the sheer number of cancellations. Most people have had favorite show cancelled, and most people have been impotent to do anything about it. And for a majority of those people, they will resent the empowerment that a successful movement has.

4) The bottom line is that CBS has a crisis on it's hands. Right now it is faced off a virtual organization with: about 50,000 volunteer employees, some business sponsorship, a current operating budget of about $120,000 per month, and the potential for membership growth well into the millions (people and dollars). As a practical matter they have to deal with a swamped email voicemail issue, 10 tons of peanuts, two full page ads on Tuesday, and the inability to get any traction with their new fall lineup.

If CBS considers this a win -- canceling a solidly ranked show, teeing off millions of fans, and doing battle against an organized viral campaign -- then something is broken at CBS. And for those people that don't have a vested interest in this movement (non-CBS execs and non-fans) but who are trolling with negative comments, basically you are irrelevant. Not in a derogatory way, but in an analytical way. It is not a value-added asset that will contribute to CBS' decision making process, nor will it deter most fans that are here to see this issue through to the end. For us we have our facts, and an issue, and the agility of a New Media organization.

Well the ratings weren't really THAT low. Plus, CBS kept mum about the cancellation until the day they announced it (May 16th), so I kept on watching in my normal manner which is outside of the Nielsen Box. This is the whole point, not how great or not the series is, but that we (being new media users, maybe you can relate?) aren't important to the networks we as consumers were completely ignored, now this campaign is entirely web based, and in a little over a week it raised over 28,000.00 (not including what was spent independently) without mainstream media assistance. The average donation is near 5.00 per person, so I think maybe the internet users actually do count.

Sorry -- last link should have been to here.

Outside of a-51, some people make moral mistakes while doing complicating professional level stuff along the way and don't even notice them. Take for instance them building that 5 million $ seed shack up in svalbardslush: it's really complicating to make, but there are people dying right now from curable illnesses, and it won't even guarentee saving a single person in the future because there's never going to be doomsday on earth in the foreseeable future if world leaders don't goof off and nuke the entire world, there's never been a comet that has hit the earth to cause annihilation that I have witnessed and I don't understand that there ever will be.

From my reading of Ayn Rand's books (objectivist epistemology, anthem, the fountainhead) I know that she rights about moral problems, which address many issues that are missed by the people I mentioned in the first sentence of the second paragraph, and ideals. A lot of parts of Ayn Rand's books I burn and request editing from the editors, such as the garbage silly woman stuff, improper use of metaphors (badly, probably unintentionally, used some metaphors in past and present respect to write poetically rather than a future respect to describe something that there simply isn't a word on (i.e. If there is a primitive person who has never seen a plane before, the person would probably not call it a plane)), and some of it is morally wrong itself, but then there is the stuff on focus, the meaning of life, risk, and cynicism that gives a person knowledge.

From my perspective, hopefully parts of Anna Nicole Smith's movie "illegal aliens" are accurate representations of some life's technology in outer space and other planets somewhere because they would give those non-earthlings one reason to not offer to abduct some of us. That is if Area-51 invents volumetric display technology like in the

BlackSite: Area 51 demo...an M4 assault rifle mated with an M203-style grenade launcher. The sighting on the M4 looked high-tech; possibly holographic

But mostly I'm interested in seeing long interesting universes being built over many episodes, I hate it how great books/series that if rendered directly to film would require days on end of projection, tend to get mashed down into a couple hours. Maybe he can fund lots of creative people to make cool stuff and get them started on their own careers. Anything besides redoing Star Wars over and over again for new generations and media formats! Only good can come of it. Recently I looked into digital distribution.. I heard there are about 20 theaters in Japan and 60 in korea (I may have forgotten the numbers exactly) with high def, you deliver prints by inserting a hard disk and turning a key. More theaters like that will be cool. Um, that and waiting for led displays on the other walls and ceiling, pretty please George? :)

From last November. Lucas explains how theater divisions haven't made money for several years, it is a loss leader for DVD. And DVD will be replaced by an iTunes like app. Article

Lucas notes it costs 1/6 to make a digital print.. and for big movies a non-digital print is $20-30m. Article

I'm curious if slashdotters would pay for a streaming or downloadable movie as opposed to a DVD and what would be reasonable to them in terms of payment method and price. I'm considering releasing some video and movies in U.S. and elsewhere and am curious about whether there is a market.

Actually, the entertainment industry has several decades of experience in making a profit from two products that can be infinitely reproduced with no marginal cost. Those products are called "TV" and "radio."

Think about it. The cost to broadcast The Jack Benny Show were the same whether one person had his radio turned on or a million--and once those listeners had bought their radios, they could listen to radio all day long without paying any additional costs.

So how did Jack Benny make a living? Advertising.

So the real difference between the pre-digital age and the post-digital age isn't the ability to make copies. It's the ability to fast forward. Seriously. If you couldn't skip the ads, then an additional million people watching Survivor over P2P would be just as profitable for CBS as an additional million people watching it on TV. (Obviously, CBS would need a way to measure the P2P viewership in order to charge advertisers, but they'd just pay Nielson to develop a way of doing it.)

And that's why product placement is the way of the future. I chose Survivor as a deliberate example because there's already a lot of built-in placement there. Reward challenges don't just involve food or money; they involve Fritos and Visa credit cards.

Now, there is still money to be made by interstitial ads, as evidenced by the fact that the broadcast networks still have them. But as more and more people get PVRs, or download shows via P2P with the ads already edited out, product placement is going to become a bigger and bigger percentage of media companies' profits. And at some point, we'll be back to the old days, when shows had titles like The Maxwell House Concert. (Yes, that really was the name of a show!)

People in the entertainment industry know this already, which is why (for example) the union representing TV and film writers made a major push to be included in conversations about product placement. The Writers Guild didn't pick this issue at random--it's the way of of the future.

An interesting question, though, is whether the networks and studios will own that future. I would argue that the most profitable entertainment product of the past several years didn't appear on TV or in the movie theaters. It appeared on Revver.com. I'm referring, of course, to the Eepybird Mentos Fountain video, which cost $300 to make and had already generated $15,000 in advertising revenue for its creators by June (as well as an additional $15,000 for Revver.) By my estimate, it has since earned an additional $15,000 for the Eepybird guys, bringing their total profit to $29,700. That's 99 times their initial investment. By way of comparison, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 cost about $225 million to make. To be as profitable as the Eepybird video, it will need to make more than $22 BILLION.

I don't think the major entertainment companies will vanish. Hollywood, as an institution, has proven remarkably resilient. But I do think that, 20 years from now, the entertainment industry is going to be a lot more decentralized, and a lot more driven by small groups of creators doing relatively low-budget stuff.

Anderson's humor served him well during the show's first season, which even Wright and executive producer Robert Cooper, who came onboard as a writer, admit got off to a shaky start. There were rocky story lines, and there was cringe-worthy dialogue. And there was a creative argument with Showtime.

Wright still bristles at remembering how the channel wanted full-frontal nudity. "People said, 'It's Showtime sci-fi -- that's what fans want,'" he says. "We got lambasted by the critics for it. Here was this fun 'Star Wars'-like show with flashes of naked women."...

But the following year, Showtime decided not to renew the series. Explains Cohen: "Showtime decided they wanted fresh programming despite the fact that 'Stargate' was popular and performing well. We were determined to find it a new home."

Nevertheless, Wright and Cooper prepared for the show's demise. "I said to MGM, 'Let's have a spinoff show ready to launch, which would fall on the heels of a feature film,'" Wright says.

Enter Sci Fi Channel, a natural fit for the series (no full-frontal nudity required). "The show hits squarely with our fan base," executive vp original programming Mark Stern says.

I really don't see $500,000 as a big incentive when they've invested $7.5 million so far (via ApogeeGames.com).

I guess the concern is that 3D Realms is/were/will be in financial trouble, but from the sounds of the article in my previous link, they're doing pretty well from the Max Payne franchise.

You get UMD Versions with every new DVD release of a movie.

Haha, nope. Hollywood studios cut support for UMD.


I gather the PS2 is selling well and still generating revenue, no?

It is generating revenue, but it is not generating profit. In fact, Sony lost half a billion dollars in the last 3 months, despite all the revenues from PS2 game sales.

And the manufacturing costs of the PS3 haven't even hit home yet. Sony is sunk.

Piracy has only one reason to exist: to fund terrorism. But it's not like *I* said it. Alberto Gonzales said it: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/article_displ ay.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001477589.

So I guess it can be put under the umbrella of war on terror.

Ed Catmull will head up the combined animation studio. Lassiter is higher up, responsible for not just the studio side but Imagineering (theme park rides), among other things.

"It wasn't clear Tuesday what role Walt Disney Feature Animation president David Stainton will play." Or, he's out, but may have a contract that gives him exit money anyway. Stainton was previously in charge of Disney's TV animation unit, DisneyToons, the unit that produced bad sequels (The Lion King 1 1/2, Lilo and Stitch 2), The Heffalump Movie, Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas).

Several films in the Disney pipeline ("American Dog," "Meet the Robinsons" and "Rapunzel Unbraided.") will probably be killed. Disney Animation, in beautiful downtown Burbank (once called "Mauschwitz" in the industry) will live on. Probably as a CGI shop, though; they'd already moved away from 2D animation.

Technically, one big question is whether Disney Animation will go with the Pixar "all Renderman, all the time" procedural texture approach. Pixar's house style, 100% procedural textures, is what gives that "Pixar look". Everybody else uses pictures of real objects as textures, at least some of the time.

(Chuckle: it's amusing, really.)
No, it isn't, really. It's annoying and tired. Piracy has had dual meanings for a really long time. Lots of words have dual meanings, like Bank, or Letter, or Screw. Do you have funny jokes for those too?