Category Archives: The Mediascape

Film distribution explores new windows

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The coronavirus pandemic has upended film exhibition practices, closing cinemas, delaying some releases and elevating other films to notoriety.

Case in point — Killer Raccoons 2: Dark Christmas in the Dark:

“Travis Irvine, the movie’s writer, director and producer, said that in the week it was ranked 13th, “Killer Raccoons 2” was the only comedy on the list — making it the No. 1 comedy film in the U.S. (“with many asterisks next to that,” he said).”

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Ryan Faughnder quotes Bob Berney, of distribution firm Picturehouse:

“I do think that the pandemic has unleashed all options. It’s become a testing zone of every possible way of getting a film out there, and it’s going to take while before it gets set into some sort of pattern.”

This weekend we shall see which strategy wins: in one corner we have Mulan‘s paradigm-shifting Premium VOD and in the other we have Tenet‘s old school theatrical distribution. Tenet released internationally one week before its US debut, earning $53,000,000. With 60 million subscribers and a $29.99 ticket, Disney+ needs at least 2 million of its subscribers to pony up the extra cash to catch up to Tenet.

My take: If one strategy wins by a landslide, will the film industry follow en masse and forever change how movies are distributed?

To go to the cinema, or not

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Adam Barnhardt reports on comicbook.com that: Doctor Strange Director Tells Fans Not to Go See Tenet or Any Other Movie in Theaters.

This after Cineplex opened all 1,687 screens across Canada:

“Cineplex, one of Canada’s leading entertainment and media companies, will be the first of the major film exhibitors in the world to reopen its entire circuit of theatres when its remaining theatres open Friday, August 21, 2020. From coast-to-coast, all 164 Cineplex theatres and 1,687 screens across Canada will be open as of tomorrow, including the Company’s 22 VIP Cinemas locations.”

Nevertheless Jessica Leonora Whitehead opines in The Globe and Mail that “today, thanks to the quality of TV programming and the rise of streaming services, the industry cannot assume that customers will simply come back.”

My take: I love watching movies in cinemas! But perhaps not right now.

Cineplex says 2020 Q2 revenue down 95%

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Cineplex reports: “Total revenues for the three months ended June 30, 2020, decreased $416.9 million (95.0%) to $22.0 million as compared
to the prior year period.”

Bloomberg says:

“Canada’s largest chain of movie theaters has gradually reopened cinemas across the country as it exits from a lockdown that began in March. As of Aug. 14, approximately 80 per cent of locations have resumed operations, the company said in a call with analysts Friday, with the remaining 20 per cent set to open by next week.”

My take: I’m actually surprised that the March to June 2020 revenue wasn’t zero. What’s not surprising is that Cineplex stock is the worst performer in the S&P/TSX Composite Index this year, having fallen about 75 per cent. Trading at~$8 (down from a high of ~$50,) I still think Canada should buy this chain to show Canadian movies to Canadians, once it’s safe to do so again. In the meantime, we could use the theatres to store PPE, right?

As cases top 5 million, Walmart opens free drive-ins

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Well-known for allowing free overnight RV parking in its parking lots, Walmart is now converting 160 of those parking lots into free drive-in theatres.

“This pop-up event is touring the country and visiting 160 Walmart Supercenter locations. Gates open at 6:00pm and the film begins at 7:30pm. Tickets are free, but must be requested in advance.”

The films to be shown from August 5 through October 21, 2020 are:

  • Black Panther
  • Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse
  • Wonder Woman
  • Friday Night Lights
  • Spy Kids
  • Space Jam
  • Ghostbusters
  • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
  • The Wizard of Oz

My take: It appears that people are dying for a night out, as ALL of the dates are SOLD OUT! I say “sold out” but remember all the spots are free. I wonder how many of these screenings will be shut down by local authorities if they exceed the maximum number of congregants for group gatherings.

Netflix Canada begs filmmakers to pitch them

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Tomorrow is the deadline! Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 8:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time. That’s 5:00 PM on the West Coast, folks.

What deadline? The deadline to submit your pitches to Netflix Canada.

“Netflix is proud to help bring Canadian stories to the world. We are continuing our search to discover amazing stories from both seasoned storytellers and undiscovered talent all over Canada. Diverse and underrepresented stories told authentically are important to us.”

They are looking for these projects:

  1. Nonfiction Series
  2. Original Animation
  3. Original Series
  4. Original Independent Film

They provide very clear instructions as to what and how to present. They’ll be back in touch in September to follow up with the creators of the projects that pique their fancy. Good luck!

My take: You will never get a better chance to put your project in front of decision makers at Netflix Canada. Health-wise, BC and Canada look pristine when compared to film production centres in the US. Kudos to Netflix for supporting Canadian voices, all the while ensuring product continues to be made, especially as the world binge watches the time away. Got a project? You’ve still got time to get it into shape and pitch it. Just do it.

Plex TV streams 80 channels for no cost

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Plex throws down the gauntlet in the cord-cutting/streaming wars with a recent post on its blog: the one where Plex announces free streaming live tv.

Remember the good old days of live TV? Plex says:

“Today Plex is bringing it all back… with free Live TV for everyone, in all 220+ countries that Plex serves. With over 80+ channels (plus even more coming soon) across all your favorite genres. And this is in addition to the 14,000 (and counting) free movies, documentaries, and TV shows you can find on Plex on-demand, so there’s always something on to fit your mood.”

80 channels of live TV, free to stream? It’s true!

But the catch is, you’ve probably never heard of the vast majority of them. RetroCrush, Comedy Dynamics, ConTV?

However, there are some quality channels, like Reuters, Yahoo Finance and Gravitas Movies.

You might even find a new guilty pleasure, like the Wu Tang Collection, KMTV or the Bob Ross Channel.

On the streaming side, there’s lots of news, movies and TV. And ads, now and again. Just like live TV!

My take: So much choice! I can remember when there were less than a handful of TV stations over the air to choose from. And they all played news at the same time. I kinda miss that — everyone was plugged into the same content, so it was a shared experience. And there were only one or two newspapers in town as well. With the proliferation of content on dozens of cable channels and now hundreds of internet streaming services, the mediasphere has shattered into a cracked mirror with one shard for every genre or narrow point-of-view. I think this means society has been slivered as well. I can see Plex appealing to folks who want to cancel their TV and streaming services and who only want to pay for internet connectivity, which has turned into an essential basic service. I can also see it appealing to those who have already cut the cord and nostalgically want some live TV again. Spoiler alert: you will get those pesky ads too!

Searching for a viable distribution strategy…

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Sarah Pirozek, writing on Filmmaker Magazine, shares her search for an Independent Distribution Strategy Amidst Pandemics and Streaming Wars.

Sarah‘s debut feature is #LIKE.

The micro-budget noir feminist thriller has played at some smaller film festivals and garnered some great reviews. But distribution remains elusive. Sarah says:

“The smaller distributors who approached me seemed to have little marketplace clout, and they weren’t offering a minimum guarantee. They also had high expense caps, meaning that I’d probably see little to no profit. And they wanted all rights, a very long term, plus a high share of the revenue split after marketing costs and distribution fees. A filmmaker friend told me that some of these companies just want to refresh their rosters and don’t do a lot once they actually sign your film. In addition some of these companies had the sort of horror slates where my quirky feminist film, although a thriller, wouldn’t sit well alongside often misogynistic slasher pics.”

As she vows to continue her search for a viable distribution strategy, Sarah ends with this downbeat quote from a fellow producer:

“We should just get the fuck out of this? You kill yourself making a movie. No one makes money and no one is gonna see it. Not everyone’s voice is heard on streaming platforms.”

My take: here’s a strategy: wait. I think it boils down to supply and demand. As the cost of filmmaking has diminished, the supply of movies has increased, driving down the market. But, as the pandemic drags on, people are streaming more and more content, and production has slowed to a trickle. When supply is down and demand is up, prices rise. While you’re waiting for your film to become more lucrative, think of other ways to increase its value. For instance, build up your profile and those of your stars.

Disney scientists perfect deep fakes

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We propose an algorithm for “fully automatic neural face swapping in images and videos.”

So begins a startling revelation by Disney Researchers Jacek Naruniec, Leonhard Helminger, Christopher Schroers and Romann M. Weber in a paper delivered virtually at The 31st Eurographics Symposium on Rendering in London recently.

Here’s the abstract:

“In this paper, we propose an algorithm for fully automatic neural face swapping in images and videos. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first method capable of rendering photo-realistic and temporally coherent results at megapixel resolution. To this end, we introduce a progressively trained multi-way (comb network) and a light- and contrast-preserving blending method. We also show that while progressive training enables generation of high-resolution images, extending the architecture and training data beyond two people allows us to achieve higher fidelity in generated expressions. When compositing the generated expression onto the target face, we show how to adapt the blending strategy to preserve contrast and low-frequency lighting. Finally, we incorporate a refinement strategy into the face landmark stabilization algorithm to achieve temporal stability, which is crucial for working with high-resolution videos. We conduct an extensive ablation study to show the influence of our design choices on the quality of the swap and compare our work with popular state-of-the-art methods.”

Got that?

My advice: just watch the video and be prepared to be wowed.

My take: Deep fakes were concerning enough. However, this technology actually has production value. I envision a (very near) future where “substitute actors” (sub-actors?) are the ones who give the performances on set and then this Disney technology replaces their faces the those of the “stars” they represent. In fact, if I was an agent, I’d be looking for those subactors now so I could package the pair. A star who didn’t want to mingle with potentially COVID-19 carriers could send their doubles to any number of projects at the same time. All that would be left is to do a high resolution 3D scan and some ADR work. Of course — Jimmy Fallon already perfected this technique five years ago:

Streaming TV: quantity versus quality

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Maria Santos, writing on UpNext, asks which streaming service currently has the most original series to offer its subscribers?

The clear winner is Amazon Prime Video, with over 2,200 TV series available. Netflix is second with over 1,900. Note that about 35% of Netflix’s TV series are originals.

However, when counting high-quality (average rating of 8.0 or higher on IMDb) TV series, Netflix pulls away with over 330 shows.

My take: That’s a lot of TV to watch!

Idris Elba champions diversity and inclusion

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As noted by Rhian Daly on NME, Idris Elba has championed the importance of independent film to diversity in an essay in The Sunday Times.

Idris writes, liberally edited:

“Film isn’t elitist. We all express ourselves through the stories we tell, what we watch and the communities we create. One person’s film culture is watching Spider-Man at the Rio, another’s is going to a Kurosawa season at the BFI or catching the new Christopher Nolan movie at an Imax. But it’s those smaller independent and community cinemas that have been hardest hit by the lockdown… Film isn’t just entertainment. We’re looking at each other, watching what other people do and encouraging greater honesty about each other’s cultures. It’s the age of mass storytelling in which a video recorded on a phone can bring together families separated by lockdown — or inspire a powerful global movement… A nation finally acknowledging its diversity needs a diverse film culture — we have to protect it at the time we need it most… We may need the money mainstream cinema from America brings in, but to create future stars and introduce new voices, independent film is where it’s at. I wouldn’t be here without it.”

Rhian also quotes Sandra Oh as claiming UK TV is not diverse:

“The UK, I’m not afraid to say, is behind. I am not only the only Asian person on set, but the development of people behind the camera is very slow in the UK.”

My take: yes, independent film is indispensable to diversity, mainly because no one can stop you from making your film with your particular point of view. Inclusion, on the other hand, still has lots of gatekeepers, those thwarting your message from getting out and keeping you out of their club. I think the fact that we’re discussing the problem shows we’re firmly on the path to change it.