Collected Data
Cineworks New Site
Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society (est. 1980) is an artist-run production and exhibition centre that supports independent filmmakers and media artists. Through initiatives that foster dialogue and experimentation with cinematic practices, we engage our membership and the broader community through the transformative power of the moving image and the changing role of film in its contemporary context.
Cineworks, Vancouver’s film co-operative has relaunch their web site.
Back in the day, I worked as their Digital Media Co-Ordinator. Since then, I’ve sat on the Board of Directors twice. I’m still involved as a member of their Equipment Advisory Committee.
If you are based in the Lower Mainland of BC, become a member. They are good people.
Watch: "Very Nice, Very Nice"
Watch: "Am I a Good Man?" Dr Who Series 8 Trailer
The “feature length” first episode airs on August 23rd.
In memoriam: Wolf Koenig (1927-2014)
Filmmaker, producer, cinematographer, animator, and overall cinema pioneer Wolf Koenig passed away on June 26, 2014 at the age of 86. During a prolific career at the NFB, Koenig’s films were lauded for their sophisticated style and what was often a subtle irony in their observation of human behaviour and modern society.
In memoriam: Wolf Koenig (1927-2014)
Quote: “Every cut is a lie..."
“Every cut is a lie. It’s never that way – those two shots were never next to each other in time that way. But you’re telling a lie in order to tell the truth.” - Wolf Koenig
RIP Wolf Koenig
Documentary pioneer Wolf Koenig (pictured), who spent 47 years working at Canada’s National Film Board (NFB), has passed away at the age of 86.
Doc pioneer Wolf Koenig passes away
Mr Koenig was brilliant. He helped redefine cinema.
Lonely Boy by Wolf Koenig& by Roman Kroitor, National Film Board of Canada
Rest in peace.
"People often forget there is the word ‘pay’ in the pick and pay option.”
“We’re trying to get ahead of the curve. We’ve got three big proceedings this fall and they’re all about setting the stage for the future of Canada’s telecommunications system,” said Jean-Pierre Blais, chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission... “We’re trying to get Canadians, regulated industries, producers, those that watch TV together in a room and say ‘OK how can we prepare in a sustainable way for the next five to 15 years?’”
CRTC races to stay ahead of telecom system in flux
Film Theory: SYNOPTIQUE - An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies
Synoptique publishes articles covering a wide array of subjects related to Film and Moving Image Studies, be it aesthetic, film history, technology or theory. We also publish festival and exhibition reports, as well as book reviews.
via Film Studies For Free
"But while CBS and ABC investors may be throwing around high fives at the sop from the Supremes, the average consumer just took a bath."
.In crippling Aereo, you see, the six judges made a choice to entrench the current, badly broken model of TV. That model has let the TV business largely defy the logic of digital distribution, and instead impose a form of cartel pricing on consumers — requiring people to buy a slew of channels they don’t want in order to watch the handful of ones they do
Why the Supreme Court just set TV innovation back a decade
Google starts censoring search results in Europe due to privacy ruling
As soon as the ruling happened, Google started receiving requests from pedophiles and disgraced politicians asking for links to articles about them to be removed.
Google starts censoring search results in Europe due to privacy ruling
For another way of looking at it...
Life Liberty And Pursued By Google
“We used to lead with television and radio. Web came and then mobility came. We are reversing, we are inverting the priorities that we have”
“We’re going to lead now with mobility, we’re going to lead with whatever widget you use” says CBC president and CEO Hubert T. Lacroix. “You’re going to see an investment in mobility that’s going to rise as the investment in perhaps television ... is reduced.”
CBC to cut back supper-hour news, in-house productions
A smart move.
Google TV returned for a… oh, never mind. Nobody cared. Next!
Since 2010, Google has tried easing itself into the living room with various boxes, dongles and gadgets that put its software and services on your TV. Each attempt has been a little different and usually a little better, but there has yet to be a critically acclaimed box-office hit. Perhaps the previously reported Android TV, formally introduced today at Google I/O, will be different.
Android TV: Google Aims for the Living Room … Again
Perhaps.
Google did not have concrete hardware plans to bring Android TV to the world, but stated it's working with a number of manufacturers on both streaming devices and TVs.
While the platform is still a theoretical implementation than a concrete product, Google is flexible about whether it can be used for a smart TV, a set top box, or another format entirely.
Google makes a comeback in the living room with Android TV
So, basically, they announced a Demo. Nice “Moon Shot” Google.
"Insofar as there are differences, those differences concern not the nature of the service that Aereo provides so much as the technological manner in which it provides the service"
"It’s always worth remembering that our openness to stories and our willingness to suspend disbelief leaves us vulnerable to exploitation by others."
The problem with The Pillars of Creation is that there is no up or down in space, meaning the orientation of the image — to say nothing of the consequent naming of the image — was an editorial choice.
Space and the Storytelling Reflex
Listen: "THWIS" by Dj Olive
THWIS is a warm bass journey through the untravelled back streets of brooklyn's underground future dub landscape. Though you can hear the rootsy lovers feel THWIS is not a derivative dub record but a truly original reflection from one of brooklyn's loved underground producers. THWIS follows in the footsteps of Olive's classic Bodega release and his work with New York's legendary electronic trio We™.
"I don't think the company is evil, but I don't want to be in a chair having everything I need to me delivered to my fingertips automatically."
I feel weird about it. While buying toothpaste online does nothing to help my local economy, the truth is that I'm not buying it from a mom-and-pop store. My six bucks is going to end up at Amazon or Walgreens, and both are multi-billion dollar companies.
BUY N LARGE PRIME
I would argue that buying local, even from a corporation like Walgreens, is supporting the local economy more than buying from an online retailer like Amazon. I say that as someone who makes purchases from Amazon.
"Google’s vision is clear, their disparate businesses all possessing a common idea: to connect everything and everyone."
Indeed, while credit agencies must — by law — wipe clear their data on us from many years ago, the far larger, far richer, far more encircling Google faces no such restrictions.
Life Liberty And Pursued By Google
"Feels like it’s time for a big, new show that’s completely different to arrive"
“You need the same skills for any unscripted show, which is basically storytelling. The only difference is rather than completely creating the stories, you have to be able to respond to events, and to mold stories, and to present them in such a way that’s interesting for the audience.” - Conrad Green
Reality Check: Conrad Green On ‘Utopia,’ Singing Shows & Technology’s Promise
"The director confesses, promises not to do it again"
"The DGA tracks all nonunion reality productions, investigates any situation in which a member is suspected of working on a non-guild-covered project and takes disciplinary action as appropriate," said DGA spokeswoman Sahar Moridani. "In no way do we allow members to work nonunion."
DGA & WGA Members Use Fake Names To Work Nonunion Reality Shows
“It’s been a whirlwind,” says Grad. “It’s been a great experience and helped my business tremendously. I hope it lasts forever because I love it so much.”
Six days a week, tour busses on the Pawn Stars circuit pull up outside his store on Fremont Street and unload their passengers. “We have tours that come through here – 30 to 120 people a day – all because of the show,” he says. “They might only spend 15 minutes in our shop, but they come back or do transactions by email. We’ve made some customers for life from those tours.”
Reality Check: ‘Pawn Stars’ Experts Trade Fame For Treasure In Lieu Of Paychecks
The country lives under threat – we are surrounded by enemies. And that makes people be very creative.
“The very big change came when we began to produce TV formats. We didn’t think that our culture” would be so embraced. But with globalization, “you see that your problems are human problems. Now we understand that a good story or a good format is something that can make must-see TV.” - David Yardeni
Reality Check: Israel’s Star Continues To Rise As Source Of Innovative Formats
"Revenue from online video services is set to overtake box office revenue in 2018"
Do you prefer a night in with Netflix over paying $8 for popcorn at the theater? You’re not alone: Box office revenue has been flat over the past few years while online video revenue has grown dramatically, and this is starting to change how Hollywood makes its money. - Janko Roettgers for Gigaom
Netflix & Co. will soon make more money than movie theaters
"It’s pricing 101: if supply outstrips demand, the price drops"
I just noted that Facebook and Google, in order to function, must be free (and thus ad-supported) in order to offer meaningful social networking and better search, respectively. The biggest beneficiaries, though, are the people who actually use Facebook and Google. Facebook doesn’t seem to get much respect in tech circles, but the truth is it has had and continues to have a more meaningful impact on normal consumers lives than any of the various companies and products that actually get tech people excited. - Ben Thompson
PRIVACY IS DEAD
Artists who don’t sign with YouTube’s new subscription service to be blocked
90 percent of the music industry have agreed to the contract terms that include provisions for the subscription service. But YouTube will apparently not let the 10 percent that have resisted carry on as ad-supported-only videos, and Kyncl told FT that the blocking will begin in a matter of days.
Don’t Be Evil.
Watch: "Twenty One in One"
Twenty One In One from movies4machines on Vimeo.
A mash up of the 21 videos made as part of Project 53.
"Unable to respond on the business side, the old guard turns to political power to develop a legal (but short-lasting) containment strategy."
Historical players had experienced nothing but a cosy competitive gentlemen-like environment, with a well-defined map of players. This left incumbents without the genes, the culture required to fight digital barbarians. Whether they are media dealing with Google, publishers negotiating with Amazon, hotels fighting Booking.com or AirBnB, or taxi confronting Uber, legacy players look like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. - Frederic Filloux
Legacy Media: The Missing Gene
"You’ve got to do things, you’ve got to keep it fresh, you’ve got to try to keep it relevant."
You know, it’s interesting to see where this genre has gone into the more sort of character-led, personality-led forms of reality TV. At the same time, things are cyclical. I think every generation, each genre of programming has a star, and it might be every 20 years or maybe even every 30 years. Look at game shows. They were sort of out of fashion, out of favor. They weren’t fresh, there was nothing new, so they were pushed into the daytime schedule. Then along came something fresh and it was Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. - Trish Kinane
Reality Check: Trish Kinane On ‘American Idol’ Ratings, Simon Cowell & Harry Connick Jr & The Next Big Thing
"Viewers sent 1.92 million tweets on May 13, including a record 310,000 at 8:59 PM EST"
"I think it is about jeopardy in unscripted drama, which is something that a lot of producers fail to spot."
For me, the essence of Reality TV is all about drama. So, I think bringing pressure is healthy whether it’s a professional chef or a domestic chef. Because the only way ever to really identify the true purpose of how good they are is submerging them under pressure. So I say it’s no different than a live football game because it’s about the intensity. - Gordon Ramsay
Reality Check: Gordon Ramsay On ‘MasterChef Junior’, His Gentler Side & Taking Nothing For Granted
"The great thing is, there are new ideas every day, and that’s what’s exciting."
It cannot be phoned in, it has to continue to be great, and my philosophy of when you find something that works, it creates an anchor. It’s an emotional anchor for people. - Mark Burnett
Reality Check: Mark Burnett On ‘Survivor’, ‘American Idol’, ‘Shark Tank’ & Anchoring Values
“I think there is a bit of a crisis.”
“The reality genre is maturing,” she said. “There was a while there – a heyday – when anything you put on was fresh and new. But not everything’s going to work now.” - Nancy Daniels
RSW ’14: Revisiting the “creative crisis,” four months on
"I say, what a wonderful butler! He's so violent!"
“The audience is tired of conflict-oriented, super structured and over-produced reality.”
“Don’t wait for the network to tell you what they’re looking for,” added Linn. “Go after the things you’re most excited about and would want to watch on TV. Somebody is going to want it or some variation of it.” - Chris Linn
RSW ’14: TruTV, Leftfield execs talk reinvention strategies
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