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Steven Spielberg to Produce Web Films
starlady writes "DreamWorks SKG and Imagine Entertainment apparently are trying their hand at Web movies. The
article says that the first will be shorts - but might we be seeing full-length movies soon if this first venture is successful?
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Now, from my perspective it looks as if Mr. Katzenberg had more money than anyone would ever need before he'd left Disney. But he's certainly run a vendetta against them since he's left, with zero regard for the little people who get hurt in a clash of titans. Not just the little people working with Disney, but collaborators of SKG who got caught in the cross fire.
There's even been talk about evil characters in Prince of Egypt that were drawn to resemble Disney executives. I can't say if any of this is true, but I hear so much of it and it seems consistent.
I sure don't mind being out of the movie business.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Takes about 1Mbyte/sec for DVD-quality mpg2 playback. That's a titch high for even DSL and cable modem users, and at 1Mbit/sec, more in line with what those users can swallow (on a good day, phase of the moon just right, servers aren't too badly loaded), you're going to need to play that back on one darn small window.
:)
If SKG wants to explore production on the web, I recommend taking a shot at fully modelled 3D animation, a la Pixar but way less geometric, lighting, and animation complexity, and instead make it real-time by requiring cheap but fast 3D accelerators. This hasn't been done professionally before, and as anyone who has watched a grainy, barfy little 320x200x256color Quake movie can attest, even "amateurs" have created dramatic, funny, awe-inspiring content. Imagine what the pros could learn to do, and with a budget, and with today's technology!
But it takes lots of talent to do it right and a lot of modifications to directing techniques to understand its strengths and limitations as a medium. So if they want to be there for the next big thing on the web, I think this is where they should be sinking the bucks and time. Unlike so many other web ventures, you could actually turn a profit selling good flicks for your PC, and there are some nice bennies:
1. You can re-use your character models,
textures, and basic animations.
2. You can re-use your world textures, possibly
parts of the geometery ("sets").
3. Colored lighting techniques are very cheap.
4. Those hyper-expensive spin-shots usually
done with a battery of cameras are now free.
5. You can re-use sound effects.
6. No expensive shoot. License actor skins in
several costumes for the movie, get their
lines in a foley studio. Then use
variations on stock animations for the
cast's movement instead of dragging big-name
and big-budget actors through the tedium of
mocap.
In other words, you get not only re-use within a production, but between productions, and in distribution, too. You just can't say that about platters of film or even DVD's. That could be a big, big deal.
Here's hoping SKG (or someone else wielding Mbucks of st00pid money) gives it a shot.
There is a gotcha. Unless they do some neat stuff, they will prolly still have to hock up a healthy 64kbits/sec stream for the soundtrack, and downloading those first textures and models is gonna smart a little. On the bright side, the user could always start watching without textures and watch them "res in" as the textures come down the pipe. (teehee)
Still, these are neat problems to have, unlike the one of how to make RealVideo look and sound better than pigs making bacon in what looks more like an icon than a window.
I quote directly:
It's being financed by Vulcan Ventures Inc., the investment arm of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
It must be bad!
This company must be the embodiment of Satan in the form of animated entertainment!
Chill, those of you who have to say "Microslop" and "Micro$oft". It's okay. Really.
I hope I caught this before the anti-Microsoft crew kicks in.. surely we can give 'em a break on this one, eh?
Notice how they DID NOT mention that the title of their first film is "Bill Gates: Man or God"? That's because it isn't. Take note, ye of little faith.
Maybe they should take a hint from the failure of that NetAid nonsense. Not the part about generation Y not giving less about charity, but that any high profile webcast is doomed to fail.
I mean, Real player? Who wants to watch something made by Spielberg on a 100*100 dot updated at about 5 fps. And while you and I know that this is because our Internet connections suck and might try to have patience, 99% of the viewers just get pissed off.
Until enough people have serious broadband capability and ip multicasting takes off, the Web is a lousy medium for film. Which is ok. It doesn't have to be everything. So if only Spielberg would let the hype be and go do what he is good at for a medium that deserves it instead...
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