I attended the London Games Conference last night. My second time. Overall it wasn't as informative as last year. Unfortunately, most of the speakers use the opportunity to showcase their own products, services and technologies - rather than sharing useful business insights. I wouldn't mind so much if the event was free, but it isn't. Far from it! Nevertheless, there are the occasional pearls of wisdom. Here's some of what was relevant to me... Phil Harrison (Corp VP of Interactive Games @ Microsoft) discussed the phenomenal growth of the XBox Live platform. Not surprisingly, it's an important component of their strategy to beat Apple at its own game - by having a universe of apps and content that can be consumed on any of their devices. Given that 70m XBox's have been sold to … [Read more...]
Crowdfunding Paradigm Shift – Kickstarter & Double Fine Adventure
I hate using the phrase, "Paradigm Shift", because it sounds so phoney and hyperbolic but in this case I think it's warranted. The video game project - Double Fine Adventure - has just raised $3.3m - from 87,142 fans on Kickstarter. There are a number of reasons to be excited about this. The first is that, "The Audience has spoken". Here are 87,000 fans who have pledged money to participate as voyeurs in a project without taking any stake in it whatsoever. They have happily given money simply for the privilege of going along for the ride. Second, roughly half of them gave $15 and a quarter gave $30. This is slightly more than the price of an average movie ticket - suggesting that having ringside seats to the game development process is considered to be at least equivalent entertainment … [Read more...]
The Middle-Man is the Problem
When I see how successful "The Artist" has become ($81m worldwide BO as of this writing), I am reminded of how difficult it is to get unusual films made yet how much the audience enjoys them. Film is really more than a medium of escape - it is a place to find fresh new ideas, stories and performances. The trouble is, this is not what distributors and financiers are looking for. Independent filmmakers dream of making brave new films for receptive audiences. And, yet, when it actually comes down to getting films made - we aren't pitching them to the audience. We are pitching them to middle-men. And what the middle-men are looking for may, in fact, be very different from what audiences crave. The middle-men will tell you otherwise. They will tell you that they know what audiences want. But … [Read more...]
Jane Wright & Paul Grindey – Independent Feature Films
In this podcast, I brought together Jane Wright and Paul Grindey to discuss feature film development, finance and distribution. I was particularly interested in their advice for the independent producer, given that they have worked both as independents and for large organisations. Jane Wright has worked for the BBC for 15 years, most recently as Managing Director for BBC Films. Paul Grindey has worked for Channel Four and Film Four for the past nine years. Both are now independent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcvTViCi9gU … [Read more...]
When Loyalty Pays Off
As an independent producer, I meet with a lot of financiers, distributors and sales agents. It reminds me that I'm not making films for the audience. I'm making them for the middle-men. This is far from ideal. The ideal scenario would be to have a direct line to the consumer - like you do in the theatre. Instant feedback between the consumers and the creators during every viewing. And if they liked something, we could give them more. But I'm not pitching my projects to the consumer. I'm pitching them to people who believe that they know the consumer best. They're the ones who'll have to market the picture, pay for prints and advertising, haggle with the exhibitors and collect the receipts. They want a particularly kind of product. They might not be able to tell you what it is but they … [Read more...]
And You Wonder Why DVDs are Dying…
Recently, I purchased a DVD from Amazon in the UK. It arrived promptly the next day, which was impressive. I popped it into my computer to watch but realised that I hadn't set my DVD region yet on that machine. I didn't really want to. Since I travel frequently between the USA (region 1) and the UK (region 2), I like to keep my options open. I wasn't ready to commit. Right about then, my iTunes auto-loaded, whereupon I was informed that I was entitled to download a digital copy of the movie for my personal consumption. Okay, I thought, that's a relief. This way, I could transfer the digital copy to my AppleTV and watch it on the big screen. That would make a nice change. Following the instructions detailed by a 20th Century Fox page for the film that had popped up within iTunes, I … [Read more...]
UK Terrestrial Forays into VoD
According to Design Week this week (this link hits a paywall, so you have to subscribe to get the content), there's been 'an upsurge in the number of people consuming television through on-demand services'. This isn't surprising when you consider how TV viewing has become less and less of a community activity with people texting and wanting services on the go - even while they're sitting in the same room together! Most of the article is about how design agencies have tackled the challenge of bringing broadcast material to handheld devices. There is consensus that each device demands its own unique approach. At the same time, there needs to be brand consistency. The result is a tension between device-fit and brand-uniformity. In terms of the BBC iPlayer, the article points out that lots … [Read more...]
Hollywood’s Leaving Money on the Table
There have been a bunch of articles lately heralding the rapid success of Netflix - stating that Netflix traffic could now account for more than 40% of Internet bandwidth in the US during peak periods, dwarfing P2P sharing such as Bittorrent. Of course, this is cited as evidence that the average consumer would rather purchase films legitimately than pirate them but that Hollywood has been too slow to get it's act together... Leaving the opportunity up to Netflix to solve the problem. As much as I'd like to lambast Hollywood for taking too long to embrace VOD technologies, while clinging on to DVD like it was a life raft, this is probably overstating the case. Here's a sober article in Ars Technica about a study carried out by Wired. It seems highly possible that both VOD AND P2P traffic … [Read more...]
Field of Streams
Build it and they will come... There was a time in Internet Space when this was true. You put up something amusing, arresting, or outrageous and you could attract a lot of attention. Now, you have to create 'compelling content', post frequently, inter-link, out-link, back-link, guest post, optimise SEO, engage multiple social media platforms... you get the picture. In some ways, anyone who runs a website of any significance has become a transmedia producer. This is to say, artistic people who have something meaningful to say have to find new ways to say it AND sell it across multiple platforms. I was at a cocktail party where a producer of note told me that they were tired of hearing everyone talk about 'content creation'. In his mind, it was demeaning and commodifying... "Why not just … [Read more...]
