• Buzzfeed and Canaries in Coal-Mines, Happy Valentines Day Edition of Sub-Genre News

  • Posted on 14th Feb
  • Category: Newsletter

  Buzzfeed and canaries in coal mines...

  As I read all of the reports (see below) on the death of, er, layoffs at Buzzfeed and what it means for the future of journalism and Media (capital M), I can’t help but feel that these problems are the canary in the coal-mine for film. Why?

  As the Columbia Journalism Review summarizes so well, most people are blaming Facebook for these problems, “But if the giant social network is partly to blame, it is mostly because editors at BuzzFeed (and many other places) yoked themselves so tightly to Facebook’s wagon…” And as any business school professor will teach you - if your business model depends on the business model of someone else, you are in danger when you no longer fit their business model anymore.

  For Buzzfeed and similar publishers, they felt they had to lean-in (pun intended) to Facebook because there was no other choice - it’s where most of the eyeballs go, and with them, most of the ad dollars. But then you lose the direct connection to both your advertisers and your viewers. Ok, fine, you think - we’re building our brand, getting our content seen, and can leverage it later. But that didn’t work out so well.

  In a sense, these publishers were making “original content” for Facebook, and once Facebook realized original content from its users (for free, no less) was more valuable, it didn’t need the content these publishers were providing. But the publishers can’t get the eyeballs or advertisers directly, and there’s no one really waiting in the wings to replace Facebook, so they’re screwed. Unless you are a niche publication (like The Information) that has built a small but loyal audience, and you know who they are, and they pay you to keep in touch (via subscription).

  Likewise, every distributor (and aggregator) has been going to Netflix because they have the eyeballs and the money (not via ads here). But Netflix realized it could make its own original content and cut out these publishers, and that’s what they’ve been doing. So now everyone races to license their content to Amazon. In fact, when I speak with distributors, they pretty much admit it’s the only revenue source they can count on right now. But Amazon has also been slowly moving towards making their own content meaning you are also soon to be screwed (they’re also making their own products and brands, so you are in the same boat if you happen to be selling anything else, btw). They been scaling back Amazon Prime Video Direct already, and don’t count on that being the end of their purge.

  But to make matters worse, like publishers, most film distributors and “content-holders” (and even producers for that matter), haven’t built up their brands or their connection to their audience. So, few people will subscribe to them directly, and the revenue from AVOD won’t ever be able to replace what they made from their now-disappeared or soon-to-disappear partners.

  Unless you are that rare brand - Criterion (or filmmaker - Gary Hustwit) who has built their own brand and direct-to-consumer relationship, you are fucked. Or maybe you’re that lucky 1% of producers/filmmakers/studios who make stuff that is good enough to be “must have,” meaning you are A24, or Shonda Rhimes or one of about, oh, twelve other folks out there and you’ll be just fine. But that’s a small group of smart, creative people.

  The rest of us are left hoping that as Netflix, Amazon, Disney and WarnerMedia move away from needing what we make, that maybe someone will fill the void and that becomes an opportunity. Right now, that looks like Apple to some people, but ask a few publishers what that feels like. Some say it’s the broadcasters, but we know what content they like to buy already. And some say it’s services like Pluto.tv, but I’m betting those will be “pennies replacing dollars” deals.

  I’d like to say that you’re only screwed as a distributor/publisher. As a creative/filmmaker/producer, you can just work directly with Netflix or Amazon and be fine.. But then I hear stories of how slow Netflix is to pay, and how banks are starting to deny loans to cover that gap given how much debt Netflix and their partners owe them already. And then I look at the reality TV and HSN type shows Amazon is launching. And then I just stop thinking about this stuff before my head explodes.

  Of course, canaries in coal mines die a long time before the rest of us. I mean, Amazon and Netflix spent tens of millions at Sundance this year. Things are looking good. And let’s face it, they are the only games in town, so we gotta be there.

  But as Warren Buffet says - it’s not ‘til the tide goes out that you learn who is swimming naked. And the time to think about these changes is before the tide goes out.

  What I’m Reading: Film -

  Disney gave some more clues about its plans in its Q1F19 Earnings results webcast. Not too secret, but Bob Iger thinks their brands will help them cut through the clutter: “Presented with an over abundance of choice, consumers look to brands they know to sort through the options and find what they actually want. The DTC space is no different in that regard and we are confident that our iconic brands and franchises will allow us to effectively break through the competitive clutter.”

  Apple is now telling various studios and networks to be ready for launch in mid April. And like Disney, they’re relying on being a family-friendly brand.

  Because we need more streaming: MGM-owned Epix jumps into the streaming service arena with EpixNow

  

  TVOOT is launching a crowd powered social tv platform that may help cut through the clutter. Don’t know what to watch? Ask your friends via VOOT. Think this might work? Support them on Kickstarter. My favorite feature - it automatically switches your screen to your favorite back-up channel during commercials, and brings you back home when the commercials are over. That should go over well in court.

  The Information thinks Quibi is going to have trouble meeting its (short form) streaming content goals. But my bet is people will take the money, and they’ll have no issues when it starts to work (again, if he can keep Meg out of the way, sorry…).

  If your lawsuits might not work, join forces with your enemy’s enemy, which is what ChooseCo (Choose your own Adventure) is doing with Amazon.

  Games are also moving intro streaming, and will undoubtedly face the old problems of video streaming? Especially with console exclusives? There is no doubt that any subscription service can offer an overwhelming amount of content, but is that what the consumer actually wants? And how will they sort through all of these options?

  I was just in Salt Lake City for work this week, and the Deseret News has a pretty good update on the current state of MoviePass and their plans to survive for the future.

  What I’m Reading: Media -

  More Buzzfeed News: Per the above, I’m swimming with the fishes and thinking about Buzzfeed a lot this week. Some are already asking - with Buzzfeed failing, who is going to swoop in and take over the fledgling digital media company?

  The Hollywood reporter suggests that the big media companies (Disney, Viacom, Comcast etc.) should swoop in and buy in. Me: but why should they when these companies were not particularly good to begin with and are near death because they never had a sustainable business model? I smell another AOL/Time-Warner but as BuzzFeed/?.

  Adage makes a similar argument that these layoffs shouldn’t come as surprise since these digital media companies like Buzzfeed were never particularly noteworthy to begin with being that relied on community created content rather than actual journalism.

  So maybe they should look at the old guard? While most of the new media organizations are failing, the NYT is thriving: the times reports (on itself, so be aware): “BuzzFeed generated more than $300 million in sales, while still bleeding money, and The Times was on a pace to exceed $650 million in digital revenue.”  Why? Maybe because the NYT never relied solely on Facebook for traffic, or ads for revenue. But - considering just how often the NYT has screwed up its approach to digital, even with the war chest of money they’ve got, it’s odd to point to them as any model without being prepared to second-guess yourself soon.

  BuzzFeed cuts should mean the death of metric-obsessed media says the Columbia Journalism Review, which also has a bevy of links to more coverage on the issue at the end of the linked article.

  Journalism Isn't Dying. It's Returning to Its Roots - A good argument that we’re really back where we should be with hyper-partisan news, funded by (pissed-off) subscribers.

  Maybe Apple sees the future of journalism? And that’s taking 50% of news revenue generated through their platform. Magazines support it, but Newspapers fine the model to be unfair. I agree - the only people who like this deal are likely close to death anyway.

  What I’m Watching: Branded Content:

  Brand Storytelling Partner Showcase online: For those of you who've read my posts about Brand Storytelling, and weren't able to attend and want to know what it's about, you can watch many of the partner presentations on the Brand Storytelling Partner Showcase on their YouTube Channel.

  Creative Coupling: Just in time for Valentine's Day ,REI has a great new podcast interview with Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin about their film, Free Solo, which is interesting on its own, but what makes it more worth your time is that it asks what it's like to make a film like this as a married couple with kids? Some great thoughts here on the collaborative creative process. (disclaimer, I consult w these folks, but not on this).

  

• Five Sundance Takeaways, the death of Media and More Sub-Genre news

  • Posted on 7th Feb
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  Five Insights from Sundance

  When you head to any of the bigger industry festivals, you not only see great films, but also get a chance to catch up with others in the industry and get a read on what’s going on in the field. This year, I was lucky enough to attend Sundance, Slamdance, and Brand Storytelling - a conference just for brands, agencies, platforms and others working in this space. I emphasize lucky here because another thing people like to do at these fests is gripe about having to attend, when it’s really quite a privilege in life that this is part of our jobs. Anyway, here’s a few of the broader trends and takeaways that hit me as important during my time in Park City:

  1. High and Low.

  Entertainment has bifurcated into the High and the Low with very little in the middle - just like our society. We get to Sundance either crammed into economy seats or flying first class. The middle class has died across the world, and you’re either rich or poor.

  There is no middle anymore, and that’s definitely true in the film world. Amazon and Netflix were spending $14-15 million on a few films (at least they were spending again); and outside of the 1% of top distributors, most buyers were waiting it out to see what remained and could go for cheaper. Or were hoping to capitalize on that middle gap where no one else seemed to be buying. Meanwhile, and this caused the next two trends, producers and financiers were all talking about you had to either go big, or go small, but in-between was a no-person’s land.

  But my strangest experience at all of Sundance was also a high/low story - I went to see the excellent doc American Factory, where a subject in the film laments how last year he only made $27K at the factory as a skilled laborer, while his daughter brought in $13K more working as a nail technician. One hour later, I’m at a party where I overhear two (higher up) industry people debating careers and one tells the other “man, I’m telling you, you can’t live on less than $600,00 a year, it’s impossible these days.”  That to me was Sundance - and our current society - in a nutshell.

  1. Everyone wants in Early

  But I digress. The high/low split leads to trend 2- everyone is trying to board films much earlier. Film Funds are launching development funds, distributors are offering early back-stop deals or outright financing, people are optioning doc subject’s life rights before making the film so they can pre-sell the narrative feature. When you can’t count on what Netflix might do, and as the market bifurcates, safety comes in getting in very early (or very late, but that is often off the table when so many people are getting in so early…).

  1. Producers (esp doc producers) are giving up on risk and moving towards commissions

  Trend three also comes from the high/low divide. Conversation after conversation went like this:”No more one-offs and spec projects for me, I’m focusing my company on commissions.”  While Netflix and Amazon did open back up their wallets, last year taught people not to get caught without a big SVOD sale. Taking those risks and hoping to be the big sale at Sundance doesn’t always work, and it’s too stressful. With the middle dropping out, people want less risk and a guaranteed reward, which means seeking out and working on more commissions. Doc producers in particular are pitching projects to Netflix, Amazon, A&E, Natgeo and others early, and if there’s not a buy on the table or a commission for a series, forget about it, and drop the film. Secondary to this - trying to get a series commissioned which can pay the overhead while you do those labors of love on the side. The problem with this - but this is another article - is the downside of relying on those platforms payment schedules, which means you need to keep feeding the beast. On the other hand, I predict that this need for less risk will also lead to more producers seeking out brands for support, which should fuel an increase in quality branded content.

  1. Not selling works best for branded content

  I spent the first half of Sundance running between the fest and Brand Storytelling, the best conference on the planet for people working in the intersection of brands and film. And they showed a lot of case studies, and also premiered (sometimes as a work-in-progress) many brand-funded films. And hands-down the best stuff there was the least advertising-centric and the most focused on not selling (directly) by just telling a great story. Sure, at the end of the day, these brands hope that if you like the film, you will feel better about them and about buying their products, but that’s often not the direct goal of these films. Their goal, like the filmmakers they work with, is telling a great story. This wasn’t a surprise to me - it’s what I preach to my clients all the time - but I was glad to see so many brands and their partners have embraced this mission.

  1. Trusted Word of Mouth Still Rules Discovery

  This seems obvious, right? But I think it’s key to keep in mind as we move ever further into an algorithmically governed world, and as companies will increasingly use AI to serve us what they think we want to watch. Plus, I can plug a filmmaker and film this way.

  Even at Sundance, you go into the festival hoping for a bit of algorithmic luck - you chose films based a bit on which ones are playing while you’re there, which ones the programmers put in the P&I at a time you can attend, etc. And you use word of mouth - from trades, industry friends, distributor tracking lists (when you can get them), publicists you trust, etc. But the word of mouth that matters most is from people you trust. Every year, I have an experience like this:

  It’s my last night in Park City. I’ve seen three films (one great, one meh, one annoying but it sold for a lot); and I have just left one party and am debating whether to go a) the party known as one of the best at Sundance, or b) a film by a filmmaker I love, but that I know will come out soon and I can see it later. I have a spontaneous, text arranged meeting with someone I’ve never met before, and we decide to meet at the Treasure Mountain Inn’s restaurant because it won’t be busy. This is also Slamdance HQ and on my way out to option A or B, I run into Paul Rachman, a friend, filmmaker, co-founder and programmer of the fest who tells me Option C is my only option, and it’s playing right now, there’s only one seat left and he can get me in (we go back…). Very few people could have swayed me to skip party A or film B, but Paul also told me that Steven Soderbergh was a guest of the festival and loved this movie/director and it would be one of those moments where you say “I was there when…”

  The film was worth staying for, and made everything about Park City 1 million times better for me. It was worth skipping other stuff, it was worth the crappy seats and screen at Slamdance (I love them, but let’s be honest), and it will be worth bragging about later. But the point is, this only happened because of a lot of serendipity (timing, etc.) and a lot of trust in two person’s opinions of film. Not critics either mind you, but people I trust as curators for other reasons.

  No one has built in an easy way to take advantage of this trusted source recommendation in film discovery on any platform. We tried it with Flicklist - but we failed for so many other reasons. But when I’m flicking through the endless scroll of recommendations on Netflix, or watching another shitty movie because it has a good IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes score because you can’t trust the crowd - I wish I had access to just the recommendations I trust. I want this for film, for other culture and even instead of Yelp, or any other crowd-sourced system I know of. So if you are out there and you are smart, please, please, build me this machine - a system that let’s me designate people I trust to recommend the best stuff. That’s all I want, and it should be easier to make than an autonomous car.

  Long story short, if you trust me at all, or Paul or Soderbergh, add The Vast of Night and its director Andrew Patterson to your watch list. It has its issues, but it signals a tremendous new talent. I can’t say it any better than Amy Taubin (another voice to trust, who was also tipped by Soderbergh) did in Film Comment: “For me, The Vast of Night was the kind of discovery that one comes to Park City for, a display of visionary moviemaking intelligence equal to that of my most memorable Utah experiences; Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko or Shane Carruth’s Primer, or for that matter, Christopher Nolan’s Following, which also premiered at Slamdance.”

  What I’m Reading: Film & Content

  

  Finally, an open source, useful film festival database: Created by filmmaker Michael Forstein, on his own time, and not by any of the “filmmaker service organizations” or “film festival alliances” that in theory should have done this shit a long time ago. But I’m glad someone did this - and as of now it includes a searchable, sortable Google Doc database, as well as two map versions for geo-targeting (BTW, for those looking, it has deadlines in the master database tab).  It needs more international fests, and has a few minor errors - but it’s one person doing this for free. Some foundation should retroactively give him a grant for his work (I’ll be donating, which you can do here).

  Who is Netflix’s biggest competitor? HBO? Hulu? A new Disney service?  It’s actually Fortnite. In a letter to investors with their Q4 results, Netflix recently outlined how they aren’t just competing with streaming services for screen time, but also with other forms of media such as video games. “”We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO," Netflix said.” A good reminder to anyone in this space - you aren’t competing with just other movies for people’s attention, but everything else they can do with their time. The “Attention Economy” is here.

  And about Fortnite: Redef has a great run-down of the myths and realities of what makes it tick. And when all is said and done, this is why it’s a threat not just to Facebook, but to Netflix and even movie-going: “Fortnite’s most significant achievement may be the role it has come to play in the lives of millions. For these players, Fortnite has become a daily social square – a digital mall or virtual afterschool meetup that spans neighborhoods, cities, countries and continents.”

  Games moving to Subscription - Like Netflix and MoviePass, Games are moving towards a subscription model as well,according to The Week, which coupled with a freemium model (free game, pay for add-ons), should only increase their popularity. If the Bandersnatch model catches on, it could extend the freemium model to film as well - pay to get a better ending; or what I’d prefer - let me pay more to get a better selection of films instead of tv shows!

  How important is Disney+? Many analysts are calling Disney the “safest bet in streaming,” with UBS projecting they sign up 5 million subscribers in their first year and grow to 50 million by year five.  That’s half as many as Netflix already has, but close to their US base as of now. Disney announced this week that they’ve already lost $136M in this quarter building the damned thing - but consider that an investment in a robust future.

  Viacom bought Pluto Viacom is officially enlisted in the streaming wars, buying Pluto.tv (not the planet for those of you who have never heard of the free, ad supported service). They’re also saying their $340M acquisition will become a $5Billion ad business.

  M&A: BTW, this confirms my prediction from a few weeks ago in the newsletter about mergers and acquisitions coming this year, and you can Add The Orchard to that acquisition list as well.

  Forbes is predicting Amazon and Netflix will launch an ad-supported version of their services soon. My take: Amazon, sure, but there’s no evidence that Netflix would do this at all. I could see it in certain foreign markets on a mobile-only version, but “no ads” is one of their biggest selling points.

  Netflix still has 2.7 Million DVD subscribers - and they brought in $85 Million in revenue last quarter from it. Small change for Netflix, but I predict the DVD service might grow since you can actually get a better mix of films there than on SVOD (which is why I still get the DVDs).

  Amazon Prime just booted a bunch of indie films off of the service with no heads-up the filmmakers. TheNextWeb thinks its a travesty, which it is, but apparently only some 3000 people agree, as that's how many are signing the Change.org petition to bring back indies to Prime. Which begs the question: is the sum total indie audience less than 4000 people?

  At least we have a new niche streaming service: There’s a new Home for Classic Films as the Criterion Channel sets Launch date of April 8th. Will there be enough consumer support to keep Criterion alive when FilmStruck shut down in 2018? While I love Criterion, my bet is that they need a lot more capitalization so they can curate a much broader selection to remain competitive. I still don’t believe that enough people want only niche films to keep a niche service alive - I know I need a bit of both (niche and mass entertainment).

  What I’m Reading: Media

  Unless you are living under that rock, reading a print newspaper, you may have noticed that this past week/month might go down as the time when all hopes for the future of the media finally died - in print, digital and in many people’s dreams.

  Buzzfeed, Vice, HuffPo, Gannett and others all announced layoffs. Jill Abramson’s book about her time at the NYT and what’s happening in the space hit bookstores and the reviews and articles became even more timely as a result (read Jill Lepore in the New Yorker in particular) The free vs subscription wars seem to be coming down in favor of paid subscribers being the only solution, but no one seems sure what to do in a world where Facebook, Google and now Amazon own most of the advertising space, and the eyeballs. I believe that what’s happening in journalistic media is similar to what we’ll see in film as well, and worth watching closely.

  So what can we take from this?

  Jeremy Littau in Wired has some good thoughts to keep in mind -  First: “The internet wasn’t just paper—it was also the paperboy. It was a content, platform, and distribution model all in one.” Remember this, filmmakers/content-makers. And second: that a lot of overlooked audiences (women, people of color) finally had somewhere else to go: “The internet gave these already dissatisfied audience segments new choices—and reason to leave newspapers behind.” Which will happen to film if it doesn’t continue to diversify its voices/audiences as well.

  Focus on quality and loyalty: News organizations chose to compete with each other on mass scale, rather than finding what they’re best at. As Rafat Ali says in the article (but really back in 2016): “‘Time to focus on what matters: building loyalties, both with users and advertisers (if that’s a constituency), focus on doing the things that build revenue base, stay away from hiring diva-stars for the sake of hiring them, and focus on quality as consumers are tiring off cheap tricks.”

  The future of media is niche. While all these layoffs are happenings, news organizations such as The Ringer, The Athletic, and Politico are doing well. Why? A super loyal reader base, which they own, and not attempting to compete with large tech companies such as Apple and Google. But it also means you can’t count on the hyper-growth targets demanded by VC’s, so it’s better to take funding elsewhere and build for the long-term - go figure!

  The Solution is constant experimentation to serve your audience better:  Corey Ford, Founder of Matter Media’s solution for media companies is true for film companies too: “The focus needs to be: If you’re going to be long-term sustainable, how do you build an organization with a culture and processes that enable teams to constantly be understanding their audience and adjusting — constantly be experimenting with new technologies, and constantly seeking out new sustainable business models? If you’re a leader of a media organization and that’s not the No. 1 thing you’re thinking about every single day, I don’t think you’re leading your organization to long-term success.”

  Brands/Platforms need to be intimate.

  While consumers are becoming more wary of social media, brands are seeking to create more personalized and relatable relationships through consumers. What does this look like? Well, Conde Nast gives a good example when they “launched a private Facebook group called Women Who Travel, which provides a safe space for passionate female travelers to ask each other questions, leave suggestions and offer encouragement. Since the group is private, it requires moderator permission to join and provides a sense of exclusivity and authenticity that can be hard to find elsewhere on the web. The group has quickly grown to more than 120,000 members strong.” That’s niche, intimate media for the win.

  But as Nick Child’s reminds us: don’t get too intimate: because false personalization kinda sucks.

  What I’m Reading: Culture

  Guidestar and the Foundation Center are now Candid: If you’ve ever raised money for a film or nonprofit from grants, you’ve probably used the Foundation Center’s database of grants. And if you’ve ever applied for a job at a nonprofit, you are stupid if you didn’t use Guidestar to search for top executive salaries, and (more importantly if you might take that job), their financial backgrounds via their 990s. And now the two have merge into one entity called Candid. I love this. I’m a big fan of mergers for greater efficiency and services, and this looks like just such an example. Kudos to the leadership of both organizations and the funders who paid for the merger.

  What I’m Reading: VR/AR

  Screen reports that AR will grown into a Trillion Dollar Industry - Or so said Ted Schilowitz, a futurist in residence at Paramount. Me: A trillion dollars may be spent on it over time, but that doesn’t mean any profits will be made. Ok, I’m being cynical, and I think AR does have a future, but after playing around with the latest and greatest at Sundance, and speaking with the teams there about costs and potential, I’d say the costs to get involved - as a maker or a consumer - are too high and the payoff is too low to see this happening anytime soon.

  Blatant Self-Promotion Department: A film I’ve been consulting on is now available on multiple digital platforms.Check out Long Time Coming if you haven’t seen it already:

  Synopsis: You don’t have to be a baseball fan to appreciate this incredible story of two groups of 12-year-old boys and their coaches who snubbed southern segregation because they wanted to do one thing: play ball. Florida’s 1955 Little League Championship was one of the first integrated Little League games in the South. For the all-black Pensacola Jaycees, it was a long trip away from home to play the Orlando Kiwanis, and the film brings the two team captains together after 60 years to discuss for the first time how that historic night felt for them … and maybe get a little play in while they’re at it. With commentary from Ambassador Andrew Young, Hank Aaron, Cal Ripken Jr., and others, this film is about baseball, sure, but it’s much more about culture, society, and a few important childhood hours that hold meaning and questions for both sides over a half century later.

  

  Available for sale/rental now:

  Amazon Prime Video: https://amzn.to/2MPDOXo

  FandangoNOW: http://bit.ly/2BnQm3E

  Google Play: http://bit.ly/2t8JiDw

  iTunes: https://apple.co/2suReig

  Vimeo On Demand: http://bit.ly/2HSV1QX

  Vudu: http://bit.ly/2SaOMwx

  Microsoft Movies & TV: http://bit.ly/2TwIjc0

  YouTube Movies: http://bit.ly/2GpMZN0

• Pre-Sundance 2019 Sub-Genre News - what I'll be talking about at the Dance

  • Posted on 18th Jan
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  Sundance is as much about the conversations in line for films, as the films themselves. Here’s a few things I expect to talk about while waiting for some great movies. Hope to see you at Sundance and chat about the following:

  1. Sundance Needs Speed-Dating. Yeah, I know, it’s a film fest and there’s plenty of movies to see, but every year I spend more time in meetings than theaters. That’s my own fault, but I do have one wish – could we all just show up one day early and have an eight hour speed-dating session where we switch seats every ten minutes and each see 48 people (6 per hour, 8 hrs, screw lunch) and get the meetings out of the way so we can just watch films the rest of the time? The Arthouse Convergence kinda acts like this for exhibitors and fests, but the rest of us need some kind of solution to the madness that is Park City.
  2. WWND? What Will Netflix Do? We all want to know. Will they be active? Will they spend? Or, more likely, will they sit on the sidelines and stay focused on their own original content? The lack of Netflix action last year led everyone to shit a ton of bricks. Entire business models (reliant on their acquisition fees for SVOD) had to be rethought. What will this year tell us?
  3. The need for a new (Foundation Funded?) SVOD - With the demise of FilmStruck and Fandor recently – and the soon to be announced death of every other SVOD/OTT service not called Netflix or Amazon Prime - as well as the increasing lack of interest from Netflix in anything remotely indie, foreign, arthouse, classic, just old, or heck, just a film…we are in dire need of a home for the rest of us.

  No one can launch a rival to Netflix without Billions in the bank, it seems, but meanwhile – I can’t find thousands of titles I want to see anywhere (legally) online. Filmmakers I know are getting their rights back to their older titles and all but a few of them are getting the cold shoulder from distributors because no one (read not Netflix, that’s for sure) wants to license these older titles. All but a handful of foreign gems are overlooked by US distributors every year, and plenty of decent indies are left hoping for a Hulu deal, even though no one I know has ever typed the letters H-U-L-U into a browser, but it’s all we can hope for anymore.

  I could go on and on, but I think it’s time some people with money turn their attention to this problem. As I’ve mentioned before, Foundations need to stop focusing on making content, and start investing in making it available to audiences. It will take hundreds of millions to make this work, so join forces my foundation friends because you are the only ones who can save us. Otherwise all of these films you keep funding will play Sundance and then sit in your grant portfolio but be seen by no one else because no one will put them on SVOD, and even though no one’s making any money on any of these films, no one will give them away for free, so we need a grant-supported (and/or crowd-funded) SVOD service to pick up the slack.

  1. MoviePass is not Dead: Contrary to all reports otherwise, and even though its owner’s stock is almost de-listed, MoviePass is not dead, and in fact is launching new programs and promotions and will be active at Sundance trying to get the word out about its changes. How do I know this? I met with them two weeks ago to find out what’s up, and I liked what I heard. I know they have steep odds against them, but I imagine we’ll be hearing more from them than anyone expects this year, and we’ll likely be discussing them at Sundance, or at least how to get an invite to their party.
  2. Are film fests struggling, due to decreased sponsorship? Anthony Kaufman had a nice little story in December in Filmmaker Magazine (subscription needed) about the death of the LA Film Fest and how festivals are having a harder time attracting sponsors and are seeing a slight decrease in individual donors. The struggle for funding is an ongoing topic of conversation for all film festival organizers, but I do think things are getting worse and won’t get better. Now that I work with multiple brands (on branded content), I see a lot more of the sponsor pitch kits that festivals send, and very few differentiate themselves or show any remote understanding of the brand they’re pitching or make any case for why that brand should sponsor that festival beyond being nice. This is mainly because the smaller fests can’t afford the staff that could take the time to tailor their pitch, so I don’t blame them really, but as brands build more direct links to their consumers, and start making their own content – fests are going to have to step up their game if they want to attract brands. They won’t do it just because you show great films. It’s hard to show greater value, build more customization, have better activation and still just serve your audience, but it has to be done. That said, fest organizers are scrappy folks, and I’m sure they’ll rise to the challenge.

  Ok, that’s five things to discuss in line for films – other than “what have you seen?” – see you at the ‘Dance.

  What I'm Reading - Film:

  Who is gonna own Awards Season? Netflix...says Fast Company, noting that:

  • “They spend way more than anyone else.
  • They pursue any and all ways to promote their projects for awards.
  • And most importantly: They, and especially Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, really, really, really want to win” (Fast Company).”

  In other news regarding aggressive moves, Liberty Media is reportedly in talks to purchase a large stake from CAA.

  And further - CNBC says Apple better buy Sony, Lionsgate or A24, or someone making content, and soon. And I agree - the future of content is gonna be tied at the hip to companies making other products.

  The Innovative Storytelling of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch has confounded Internet Pirates, although video games are pirated just as much as movies, so I can’t imagine it won’t be that long until the pirates find a way to replicate the experience.

  On the subject of innovative media that could potentially confound pirates: check out this four minute dystopian short film that utilizes periscope film technology to create an immersive visual experience… and all without cumbersome VR Goggles. It’s also a good hint at our future.

  Peter Hamilton analyzed the break-down of acceptance rates for Sundance. Check it out here

  When it comes to your data, not even your OTT provider can get it.

  Digiday covers the lack of transparency in the OTT world, with Amazon, Roku and others not giving subscriber data to the platforms, meaning they know less about who is doing what and what works.

  What I'm Reading - Culture:

  In the rare good news from Government file, POTUS has signed a new law - the Open Government Data Act -  that requires all agencies to publish their data in a machine-readable format. This has been a brewing movement for quite some time, and it's a good move for consumers in the long run. No more data dumps in unreadable formats, or sending you to the copy machine, or worse - making you pay to get access to the data you funded.

  And in the bad Government file - go figure it's Ajit Pai again, who refused to testify to Congress about why the mobile phone carriers are being allowed to share your data with aggregators. He used the shut-down as an excuse, but as EndGadget reports, he isn't affected by the furlough. Which makes you wonder why he really cancelled his appearance at CES last week?

  Steven Soderbergh, Creator and Curator: We all know that last year he produced Unsane, but maybe we should be asking what he consumed? Turns out he’s a creator and a curator - and he provided a comprehensive list of all media he consumed in 2018.

  More reasons people should be more focused on gaming. The Drum sums up four reasons why Gaming is a necessary market in media right now:

  1. Gaming is not niche, but a mass market.
  2. Gaming is focused on long term attention and consumption
  3. People watching people play video over streaming is growing in popularity
  4. eSport popularity is also growing exponentially

  Yet, no one wants to put real money into gaming, a decision that is so easy, even an Ai could make it.

  But maybe we are overestimating the intelligence of Artificial Intelligence? John Naughton of The Guardian seems to think so.  

  

  Need a Facebook replacement? Just getting used to TikTok? Well, get ready to hear a lot more about Squad, the latest screen-sharing, video chat app that's going viral w the young'uns, and will therefore be on all our radars by next week.

  What I'm Reading - Branded Content:

   

  REI and The Atlantic: ReThink teamed up for this great, in-depth report on how to increase diversity in the outdoors, and make it more inclusive, proving that branded content doesn't need to be film, it can be great "journalism" as well. As a consultant to REI, I am biased, but I had nothing to do with this piece, and I'm also a fan of anyone bringing attention - and potential solutions - to this problem in the outdoor industry/society.

  AeroMexico for the Win - on immigration, DNA and Mexico. Ok, this is an ad, and it's a bit shaky on the science, but it made me smile - Aeromexico has a nice take on getting US of Americans to visit Mexico  - by showing them how much of their DNA is Mexican. Nice work, Aeromexico.

  Larry Fink of BlackRock tells companies to take a stand: Outspoken leader Larry Fink makes news again with his letter to CEOs telling them, according to Andrew Ross Sorkin in the NYT: "Businesses...cannot merely have a purpose. They must be leaders in a divided world. Stakeholders are pushing companies to wade into sensitive social and political issues — especially as they see governments failing to do so effectively,” Amen to that - and smart ones will be doing it in their branded content campaigns going forward.

   

• CES Quick-takes and more Sub-Genre news for Jan 11

  • Posted on 11th Jan
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  I attended the madhouse that is CES for the first time this year, and it will likely take me a week to process all that I saw and learned. While I took some meetings, and did the requisite networking, I spent a lot of time on the floor gazing into our future. The few film industry people I knew seemed to spend most of their time in their booths or in meetings, and wondered why I’d spend so much time on the floor. But as my good friend, and trusted guide to all things CES, Meyer Shwarzstein (of Brainstorm Media) told me - you have to visit the floor because that’s where you’ll see what’s happening next in our business.

  Unless you are a brick, you probably heard a lot of the news out of Vegas, but the big things this year were: all things Artificial Intelligence; robotics; VR and AR; 5G; Privacy; 8K screens; drones; IOT and smart homes; Virtual assistants and self-driving/flying transportation. But here’s my quick takeaways:

  8K Screens are game-changers: Yes, we’ve all seen big screens, and we’ve had 4K and great sound-systems for quite some time, but when you stand in front of the new wall-sized 8K screens from Samsung, and roll-up OLED TVs from LG, you really wonder why the fuck anyone would go to a movie theater again. Aside from artificial windowing practices delaying my purchase, and the slight delay we’ll get before people can pay for and adopt these new screens, they’re simply better than any theater screen and all arguments in favor of theaters fall away (oh, it’s a group experience...I have Facebook, and can invite over my friends, etc.).  And yes, I am drooling over that roll-up screen.

  

  VR/AR works...for games: Oh, the high hopes we had for VR. But at CES, it was clear that people have made some cool games, but not much else. As CNET put it so well, “In 2019, VR is a sideshow in a theme park, a marketing stunt, a slide in a PR PowerPoint presentation, a niche hobby for people locked in rooms with a ton of money to spend, and -- worse -- no one seems to know what direction we're headed in, or even what virtual reality should be.” Maybe my upcoming trip to Sundance’s New Frontier will change my opinion, but at CES, VR was best when being used for a cool game, but most of them weren’t games you’d pay for more than once, or want to own.

  Autonomous Vehicles are here, want them or not, as are Autonomous Cameramen: You could get an autonomous Lyft, although everyone else will swerve around you - killing others in the process, because they just don’t trust them. There was an autonomous 16-wheel big-rig, autonomous delivery robots, drones, prototypes for autonomous flying cars. That’s all well and cool, and it probably means I’ll be catching up on more films while a robot drives me to Vegas in the future. But the autonomous/robotic tracking cameras were also all the rage. Multiple companies debuted cameras that can follow individuals with or without sensors - and from tiny cameras on your phone to gigantic camera arrays that can capture an entire sporting event, or drone cameras that can follow any mountain climber up a wall without getting tired. Lots of company’s essential pitch was: you can’t afford to hire a film team, but our robot cameras can do the work for you. Look out my filmmaker friends.

  Distributors wanted: Attending CES with a new product, no matter how good, is a bit like making a little indie film and going to Cannes (or Sundance/Toronto/Berlin): it’s easy to get lost, and hard to stand out, yet thousands attempt it every year against all odds and a few make it.

  The parallels with the film business are unending - the big guys have bright and shiny booths, they take out ads all around town and have armies of people trying to grab your attention to buy their new shiny object. The little folks are stuck into Eureka Park, itself a cavernous building with thousands of competitors, and they get a tiny booth to hawk their wares. No one has taught them how to market themselves, they don’t have any sense about how to pitch their own project (because they just focused on making it), and to make matters worse - the biggest movers and shakers can’t be bothered to even visit “the floor,” instead preferring to take meetings in suites and do business away from the plebes.

  There are country-sponsored zones, where Holland or Japan spends money to promote its industry (just like we have Unifrance with a booth at Toronto). And you can spend your lifetime crafting something unique and cutting edge, only to be placed next to some gimmicky crap that draws away all of the attention. Right next to these robotic chicken heads, clapping away… a poor guy who built an open-AI with deep learning that can teach itself to locate humans or cell-phones or your watch in a video in real time (or anything else you want it to do, actually). He tried to be good natured about it, but admitted “people seem weirdly attracted to the clapping robot chickens.”

  

  
  

  

  And what sign did hundreds if not thousands of start-ups have on their booth? Distributors wanted. Please, someone, anyone with any knowledge of the market, please help me bring this to the masses - I know they’ll like it. And unfortunately, most of those distributors aren’t even visiting their booths.
  

  We are the Robots: But if I learned one thing, it’s that the robots are already taking over by...well, turning us into the robots. Take for example the multiple kitchen tools - that read you the recipe, and tell you what to do and where everything is, and whether its fresh and how many calories...so that you can do the cooking. Shouldn’t the robot be doing that?

  Example after example of this dynamic was on display at CES, but to be honest, you need look no further than your likely email program - Gmail. Now that I have auto-complete turned on for my emails, my only reason to exist is to push the tab button, approving the text it has already guessed for me. Again, I’m the robot, and we’re barely into this revolution.

  This message was written by my robot. I just typed the words it dictated to me.

  WHAT I'M READING: FILM

  Sundance’s Creative Distribution team surveyed film distributors about what they want, and how they operate, and published the results online. This one has been making the rounds, but just in case you missed it, it’s a great service to the field (done in conjunction w/ the great Dear Producer newsletter, which you should read if you don’t already).

  The Big Winner of the Golden Globes? Netflix and Hulu. And they did it by giving the consumer what they want, producing an overwhelming amount of content ,and by just generally breaking all the rules.

  WHAT I'M READING: AR/VR/TECH:

  We’re stuck with click-bait, intrusive ads, no privacy and data collection, because that’s all that works online, right? Bullshit, says Zeynep Tufeki in a great little article in Wired. And it can be done through a little bit of innovation. Me: It’s high time we stop believing the old arguments and push for some new ones.

  Meanwhile, a few AI experts tell us what's ahead for 2019: As expected, some feel that we are more years away from the innovations that companies like Google are promising, others feel that the future is foreboding, while others see Ai enhancing user daily life.

  But at the very least, A robot (AI) can now spot art forgeries by just one brush-stroke. Next step - making the same art (forgery?) from what it's learned about famous artists…

  Brooklyn/AR:

  

  Sony just launched an Augmented Reality app-based adaptation of an exhibit formally at the Brooklyn Museum. David Bowie Is will allow users to explore the full museum show in detail from their own home, and for about half the cost.

  WHAT I'M READING: News, Media and Culture:

  Wall Street has an idea on how Disney could beat Netflix: But guess what - it’s about getting rid of windows for its own content. But it’s clear that Disney will not do that as Iger is fond of keeping theaters happy (for now).

  Disney’s Bob Iger Talks Streaming, Park Plans, and Learning from Kodak. Iger is one of the few big media honchos who deserves his job - he’s smart - so listen to this podcast or read the interview to see what he thinks is next for the Mouse and culture.

  The BBC reminds us that Golden Globes and Grammy's aside, the gaming industry is bigger than video and music combined.

  And it all comes down to three properties in 2019: Fifa 19 (A realistic soccer simulation), Red Dead Redemption 2 (An open world western ala Grand theft Auto), Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (A military shooter riding on the coattails of this years most popular, but also free to play game, Fortnite). It goes to show that gaming is currently the most innovative entertainment category, and most profitable, and it doesn’t even have a televised awards show.

  Germany’s Far Right Upset over Receiving free tickets to Schindler’s List

  Steven Spielberg’s decision to bring Schindler’s List back to theatres all around the world to spark discussion has been seen as an attack from Germany’s far right party AfD. But what can you expect when most young people (18-35)  know “very little” about the holocaust.

  Podcast from Mass Media Expo:

  I recently spoke on a panel at the Mass Media Expo in Boston, and the great team from the GoCreativeShow Podcast was there interviewing the guests.

  They've just posted the interviews, and they are a great run-down for anyone interested in the current state of media, and what's going on in media in New England.

  My segment is in Part One (55:00-1:05:00) and other guests in that episode speak a lot about the rise of branded content. Check it out at these links

  Part 1

  Part 2

• Sub-Genre News, Predictions for 2019 and more news you might use

  • Posted on 3rd Jan
  • Category: Newsletter

  Ten Predictions for 2019

  

  1. Mergers & Acquisitions: 2018 was the year for big mergers like Disney & Fox and AT&T & Time Warner, and 2019 will be the year for interesting M&A action in the lower levels of media. My bets for acquisition: IFC Films, A24, Neon, KinoLorber, First Run, Alamo Drafthouse, MoviePass (it’s not dead yet, and has a lot of good data, see below) & Magnolia. You heard it here first - one or all of these will be bought by someone (likely not the same someone), and I just don’t know by who (yet). One great new acquisition was just announced - PictureMotion and Film Sprout - and I expect many more.
  2. Netflix will buy a theater chain. Netflix tried to get Landmark, but Mark Cuban jacked up the price (and it went to Cohen Media), but this year, they’ll get serious, so they can lock in more talent and more press. I thought it would be Landmark or Alamo, but perhaps someone bigger?
  3. Amazon will buy MoviePass, Merge it with Prime, and offer the best mix of online and real-world cinema going for one low price. Ok, they may just launch this service without buying MoviePass, but with it, they’d get a lot of data and a head-start;
  4. Failures: As the economy gets shakier and crazier, things will start to shake-out and a lot of people carrying too much debt, or too little business model will die off in 2019. I don’t want to single out anyone for this honor, but I bet we see many OTT channels/providers hitting the scrap heap, a clearing out of all of these short-form “channels” that no one is watching, and a few film entities that don’t merge will end their runs in 2019. Unfortunately, I think the downturn will hit sponsorships, which will seriously hurt if not close a few great film festivals (that’s 3 predictions in one, btw);
  5. New Models: In 2018, the talk of the town was - “WTF do we do if Netflix didn’t buy us at Sundance?” And no one had an answer. As Netflix continues to focus on originals, which means less indie acquisitions at the fest stage, we’ll see more creativity around how to finance and release films, especially documentaries. Back in 2016, Roco Films helped launch the International Buyer’s Coalition to counter Netflix’s might (pooling resources to buy films for international public television), and I think a few more of these new business models will be launched in 2019. My hope is that we’ll see more collaborations between nonprofits/fests and distributors around audience-building, because that (and curation) are what we need most now;
  6. Diverse Voices: Thanks to a stellar year for diverse cinema in 2018, we should see more investment in diverse voices for 2019 - an ongoing change that should only continue for quite some time. But I’ll go a step further and say that one of 2019’s biggest media investments will be in a new venture to fund and bring more diverse voices to market - something like the 2017 launch of Macro, but maybe bigger.
  7. #MeToo Continues - yes, more revelations and reverberations, but just as importantly - more initiatives to address gender inequity behind the camera, in front of it too, and in the stories being told. Like diversity, this is a trend long-overdue and sure to continue. As a branded content person now, my biggest hope here is that Brands start to take this more seriously in finding creative voices for their content;
  8. More Brand Studios - Every year, I talk about the rise of branded content, but I think this year will see a few more brands get serious and launch dedicated branded content divisions, and finally capitalize them right and also own their distribution and marketing (as opposed to just partnering with a distributor, YouTube or Facebook).
  9. More Blockchain Platforms, with less success - Last year at Sundance, I met with at least ten different groups promising to launch blockchain enabled platforms for film distribution, and a few did launch, but more will hit in 2019. While 1 or 2 might score some press, I predict most will die as they remain focused on a problem that doesn’t exist - just making a new version of Netflix powered by Blockchain, instead of things that might work, like back-end rights management systems for existing providers. But if any of them want to succeed, do this - take ½ of whatever your total budget for the year is and re-dedicate it to consumer marketing, because all y’all got an awareness problem first.
  10. A Stellar Sundance - The economy should still be strong enough through the fest, and lots of players have open wallets looking for films. Netflix will be less active, but Amazon and others should be more active. The lineup looks great, and we should even see some (more) acquisitions of New Frontier stuff - VR and AR, interactive and mobile-first entertainment (and I don’t even have a grasp of what’s on offer there yet). In addition to acquisitions announcements, I can’t wait to hear some press confirmation of some of the ideas above - mergers and new models in particular.

  What I'm Reading- Film:

  This history of the Hollywood Reporter’s founder, Billy Wilkerson, is going on my GoodReads Books to Read list asap: Hollywood Godfather: The Life and Crimes of Billy Wilkerson by his son, W.R. Wilkerson III. The review in the WSJ (may link to a Paywall) is fascinating, detailing how being spurred by the Hollywood moguls, Wilkerson started the Hollywood Reporter as a “hand-full of papers thrown over the Studio walls” and built it into a fearful source of news that the Studios didn’t want reported. Of course, it was also a religious war (devout Catholic vs. the Jews running the studios), which would lead him to another religious war later against the (atheist) commies as a proponent of the Blacklist.  He also fell in with mobsters and apparently single-handedly started the battle that became the Hollywood Antitrust case, or Paramount Decree, leading them to divest of their theaters (which is currently being reviewed for repeal). Good and bad, this guy did a lot, and the Hollywood Reporter marches on. Reading this review, however, made me pine for the days when the Trades actually reported news - you know the stuff not sent in a press release  -instead of being mere industry promo-tools, which is all they are now.

   

  Is it the end of Netflix’s Golden Age? Don’t count on it, says me, but maybe so, argues Mark Sweney in the Guardian. And he has some good points - it’s getting more expensive for them to license content, they need to focus more on international growth and everyone else has finally woken up to streaming. But Netflix has beat the negative prognastications for many years, and my bet is that the upstart rivals will have a harder time winning back customers than Netflix has in keeping them happy.

   

  File under Kitchen-Sink - which is apparently AT&T’s strategy for the future, according to DigiDay. Faced with cord-cutters and the decline in advertising, AT&T will try a bit of everything to maintain dominance. My take - it will make for a fun 2-3 years before the inevitable death of these ideas.

  Maybe we just need to be watching films more slowly, which is what the new Very Slow Movie Player does. It plays one film at 24 frame per hour. TechCrunch has the report.

  [caption id="attachment_1354" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Photo via VSMP[/caption]

  Or however the fuck we want: Bilge Ebiri has a year-end post about many things cinema for Slate where he admits some of his best cinematic viewings were off old, 10th generation bootleg VHS tapes. But noting that the big streamers seem to not just want to privilege their method, but kill all others, he asks the obvious question: “So you guys tell me: Am I just a privileged fuddy-duddy hanging on to the outmoded ways of his youth? I want Netflix and Amazon to exist, and I want movie theaters to exist, and I want Blu-rays and DVDs to exist. Do I ask the impossible?” Me: Nope, they’ll all exist - but not every movie will exist on each format, you and every cinephile will be stuck watching all of the above to watch what you want, when you want.

  What I'm Reading - Branded Content:

  CNN Builds New Year’s Eve Ad With Lots of Spin:, CNN offered robust sponsorships of their countdown clocks and various other graphics over their coverage of NYE, reflecting a changing paradigm within televised news; where before it might be considered unethical to present logos of outside companies during news coverage, branded content is now fully embraced in the newsroom. While it’s not hidden at all  - you could tell what was sponsored - it does show that nothing is sacrosanct anymore when it comes to finding revenue to keep the “news” beast growing.

  The Betches started as a blog, but is now a branded-content funded, media empire. Forbes reports on how they did it, and how it works. From the story: “Betches' revenue is predominately earned from brand partnerships that include 360-degree strategic campaign conceptualization, video production and execution, branded social and digital assets and artwork, experiential event marketing and influencer activation, according to their advertising page, which also states that Betches had 2 billion impressions, more than 6 million users and 155 million video views per month.”

  AdAge Wraps up the Best Ads in Film & TV for 2018, and I can’t disagree with their top-4 for ads, but it could use more from the actual branded content side. But there’s a few good ones here.

   

  What I'm Reading - Net, News, Media and Culture:

  In the end of the year rush, I forgot to link this nice little article from The Verge detailing how the new AT&T could “bully its way into streaming domination.” Can’t beat Netflix at the content game? Just throttle them, give preferred access to your own channels and content. As former FCC lawyer (and Public Knowledge founder) Gigi Sohn says in the article: ““The repeal of net neutrality — and more importantly, the abdication of the FCC’s duty to protect consumers and competition in the broadband market — ensure that AT&T will have carte blanche to discriminate in favor of the video content it owns.” And Ajit Pai is too busy drinking from his gigantic mug to give a fuck.

  Is the future of media likely to become even more partisan as the ad-model breaks? Yes, says Derek Thompson in The Atlantic - but it’s a good thing. As he points out, when newspapers switched from patronage to ad-support in the past, “large ad-supported newspapers grew to become profitable behemoths, but they arguably emphasized milquetoast coverage over more colorful reader engagement.” Voter rates were actually higher under the more politicized papers as well. As the ad-model breaks and we head back towards patronage - via Bezos owning WaPo as well as digital subscribers - we’ll get more partisan news, but maybe that’s actually better for us. Interesting and quick read.

• Thinking about the future of Media and other Sub-Genre News for Dec 20

  • Posted on 20th Dec
  • Category:

  

  I normally run a predictions for next year article around now, but unless I get inspired by next week, I am plum out of thoughts about the future after reading this NiemanLab super long set of articles on the future of journalism. There are so many great articles here that I can’t even read them all, or even list all of my favorites - I guess curation/editing is the future, not the present, of prognostication.

  But the future of journalism overlaps with the future of film/video/media a bit, and of democracy a lot, so take a moment to dive into this one.  Among the better reads:

  • Latoya Drake on the need for more diverse voices in podcasts, which applies to everything else too;
  • The Subscripton-pocalypse is coming - says Brian Moritz - this is about news subscriptions but it’s true for SVOD and OTT as well;
  • Patrick Butler argues that news organizations/platforms need to start measuring impact - I agree, but this hasn’t gone so well in other fields (like film) ...
  • Platforms (Facebook and others) will stop being middle-men and become the publishers/networks they really are. As Mat Yurow explains quite well: “these platforms will finally admit that the only path forward is to go all-in: It’s not enough to simply curate content and platforms must take on the role of creating content as well. These companies will hire (and maybe even acquire) large editorial teams to produce news, video, music, movies and more in-house — and begin to deleverage themselves from a group of publishers that have increasingly soured on the relationships.”
  • Zainab Khan thinks we’ll move off social and back to publishers if they can just get the platform working right
  • Jake Shapiro opines on podcasts as the slow-food movement of media, and how its bugs (no comments) are its saving graces.

  But if you only read one article today, from this list or any other, make it Elva Ramirez’s take on making news more cinematic - which I think is mistitled, because filmmakers could learn from her ideas - which are to incorporate the visual styles and mechanisms of multiple new platforms to create a new way of telling stories.

  As she says: “As more apps appear to make design better, and as people continue to watch Stories on a daily basis, it makes sense that consumers are becoming more literate in multimedia storytelling.”And with that new literacy (Ulmer - Electracy) means new ways of telling stories not just across platforms, but using their styles and motifs within the story. Or as she says: “opportunity to come to life in a hybrid format that borrows from documentary films, graphic design, and even social media’s visual lingo, such as gifs.” Think about it when planning what you want to create in the New Year, because she’s right.

  What I’m Reading: Film

  NATO proves Netflix doesn’t hurt their business: File under irony. The National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) commissioned a study of the impact of Netflix on movie-going, and guess what - as every smart analyst has been saying since streaming began - the impact is negligible (at best) and that actually, those who stream more also go to more movies. Guess what? This is also true of piracy. People who love movies watch them in all kinds of places, and if they can’t find them in theaters or legally online, piracy is just another simple way to find them. I’m sure half my readers won’t believe this, but studies keep showing it’s true. And since the main reason we’re windowing things (which is what leads to piracy in the first place) is supposedly because of the threat of streaming, perhaps we need to rethink this whole paradigm and start making it easier for people to watch films when/where they want, and now.

  But what we really want to know is: Which streaming service has the most content?    And the best content? Well, ReelGood (a universal streaming queue, who ever thought of that?...) has two great data-sets to show whether Amazon, Netflix, Hulu or someone else wins these wars for now. Note: the most important data in the study is that Netflix is culling its catalogue every year, and getting more curated and less universal.

  Sundance Rules the Docs: The Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences have released their short-lists of semi finalists in several different categories. In the Documentary Feature category, and it’s a great list, David Courier of Sundance pointed out that ten out of fifteen movies nominated World-Premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival:

  1. Crime + Punishment
  2. Dark Money
  3. Hale County This Morning, This Evening
  4. Minding the Gap
  5. Of Fathers and Sons
  6. On Her Shoulders
  7. RBG
  8. Shirkers
  9. Three Identical Strangers
  10. Won’t you be my Neighbor?

  In addition, three other documentaries were helped/developed through the Sundance Labs and Programs:

  1. Charm City
  2. The Distant Barking of Dogs
  3. The Silence of Others

  That’s 13 out of 15 - more evidence that Sundance rules the doc world. And two of the ten shortlist docs were Sundance premieres: A Night at The Garden and My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes. Kudos to them and the filmmakers. And while this doesn’t prove you should give up hope if you aren’t in the Sundance club, it sure does make it feel that way for now, but I’d look at it as inspiration to keep making work, because they eventually find the best. What I also find interesting/funny - the buzz last year at Sundance was that it was a weak year for docs, which was so clearly not the case. I guess people just had altitude sickness.

  Youtube Year in review: Youtube just released their annual Rewind video in which the platform appears to reminisce and reflect on the past year in user generated content. Controversy has brewed, however, over the video’s failure to acknowledge some of it most popular (and controversial) content.

  But here’s a more accurate title of what we should call Youtube’s past year: demonetization. Which is what YouTube keeps doing to its lifeblood - creators - in trying to make a safe space for advertisers. It’s a bit of a long read, but really sums up why this year’s white washed version of Youtube’s year is antithetical to what Youtube was and should continue to be. As author Julia Alexander explains in Polygon:

  “Demonetization is the story of creators fighting to keep earning money for creating videos, and the constant fight YouTube gives them to continue doing so. Demonetization is creators asking YouTube to continue letting them create weird, funny and informative videos for a platform that isn’t beholden to anyone except the people who watch their videos — the very thesis that launched the platform in the first place.”

  What I’m Reading: VR

  I remain a skeptic of VR for entertainment and story-telling (for at least ten years), but here’s a slew of interesting links about how VR is gonna be HUUGE with: Christians, Wine-Geeks, Court rooms, and Hospitals and Architects, not just film festival programmers.

• Quibi: The future (death) of online video and more Sub-Genre news for Dec 14, 2018

  • Posted on 14th Dec
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  I’ve written before about Jeffrey Katzenberg’s new venture Quibi. This week, Variety held a live interview with Jeff and CEO Meg Whitman that is available as a podcast here. It’s worth a listen for both the good and the bad it portends for the future of video online, and I’m pretty sure this is one of the most important new developments to the future of online video and the web. I’m excited and depressed about it too.

  Quibi is all about investing a shit-ton of money to make really great short form and episodic content, with big name directors and talent. They’ve announced deals with the likes of Guillermo Del Toro and this week, Deadline also has a report on some recent big hires, with a hint that Spielberg’s been hanging around the office. They’ve also built an app and viewing experience that will launch in 2019 or early 2020 that supposedly makes watching short form video on your phone even better/easier (more on that in the podcast).

  And they are spending a lot to win the war for your eyeballs – they raised over a Billion dollars for this venture, and Jeff explains in the interview that (like Netflix) they are paying producers 120% of their budgets and up to $6-Million per hour for the best short form content in small bites (quick bites…Quibi). And they are relatively producer friendly - producers can exploit their IP on other platforms after just 2 years by repackaging it into different 20 minute segments, and after just 7 years, the rights revert to the creative team. That’s not bad by Hollywood terms.

  So Quibi is making HBO quality short-form content, and paying HBO prices to make it. And they elude to this in their pitch pretty quickly. In fact, the transparency of their budgets in this interview is so astounding that I imagine it’s just an open pitch to producers – “we have an open checkbook, give us a call.”

  Whitman explains their value proposition in the interview: “You leave the house every morning with a little TV in your pocket. It’s called your smart phone. “ (Quick aside: No shit, Meg, are you just realizing this? You aren’t inspiring me to believe you are any more “with the times” now than you were at EBay or HP! Wait, you’re the boss…uh-oh.) …”And you have in-between moments where you want to see something great... like HBO said: we're not TV, we're HBO...we're not short-form, we're Quibi.”

  So the upside of all of this is a lot of money being invested to make really great stuff in a format that people seem to prefer, and with a pretty creative-friendly environment (if you are part of the 1% of top filmmakers who they bother to work with). And that’s a game-changer for the space. As their content hits the web, it will force others to compete. It means brands making short form content will have to invest more to steal attention away from Quibi. It means the NYT Op-Docs, TOPIC and others won’t be able to get away with their meager investments anymore.

  In fact, you could argue that the entire history of online short-form “professional video” has been about multiple companies trying to build something out of nothing- paying too little, thinking they can build an audience with little investment. Quibi has upped the ante for short-form content platforms, and they will likely slay many online video dragons. This is all great.

  So what’s the bad part?

  The core problem with this venture is that it isn’t solving any problem that consumers actually have. And that’s always a bad business proposition.

  People already have found their answers for that “in-between” time - YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and other social media and online videos. Even watching Netflix on their phone, which is only getting easier and better with 5G. Yes, there’s a problem of overload – and having too much content to weed through. But no one sits around saying – you know, I just need more content to watch to fill these “in between” moments that Meg mentions. That problem has been solved.

  Nope. The problem that Meg and Jeff are solving is one affecting the suits in the industry – people aren’t watching their shows. What they’re watching is still a lot of amateur content – so much so that Ryan ToysReview is pulling in $22 Million a year from advertising, as millions watch him review toys.

  Quibi is a big Hollywood solution to the problem of too much content – well, if people might watch amateur video, the way to get them to watch our stuff is to pay a shit-load to make it even bigger and better, and hope we can crowd out the amateur stuff. But I think in a world where 7 year olds make $22-Million for UGC, the jury is out on whether people want more "professional" content, and if they do, it probably just means the internet has finally died.

  I swear, if you listen really closely to this podcast, you can hear the internet crying, because they're talking about how to kill it.

  Every new media technology has followed the same trajectory, and pundits and assholes like me have been warning for years that this would also happen to the internet (here’s me in 2007). When the phonograph was created, Edison thought we’d use it to record grandma for posterity, and it became a one way-street of everyone buying “professional” records pretty quickly. The same with radio, with TV and now with the internet and online video. In every instance, a medium made to be open and participatory became a one way street of consumption of “top quality content” by only the “best talent.”

  It’s not that Quibi will one day kill YouTube and amateur content completely. What they are doing is good intentioned and not evil. But as more companies invest even more money in online video; and as advertisers want “safe” content with lots of views around their ads; and as the FCC kills net neutrality, meaning eventually Quibi will pay to be sure you get its content faster than amateur content; and as this investment kills off smaller competitors like Vimeo; and as Netflix and Quibi and others invest in originals from a smaller and smaller group of “top talent;” well, all of these little moves slowly strangle the democratic, participatory nature of online video (and indie films too).

  So I guess I have a love/hate relationship with this Quibi-thing, and it hasn’t even launched yet.

  WHAT I’M READING: FILM

  Some people think Netflix needs to fear Disney; other’s don’t. I’m in the “don’t fear the Mouse” camp; but what’s important to me is that as everyone moves to more original content, and battling to keep the top-rated shows and movies inside their walled-gardens, none of them are fighting to keep much indie film around. This war is just gonna make those big Netflix acquisitions even scarcer.

  Verizon just admitted that Oath – that’s Yahoo/AOL. has gone from a $4.8 Billion dollar valuation to just $200 Million, yes, they’re taking a $4.6B write down, and getting out of the content game. Wowza.

  Bilge Ebiri wonders whether Special Effects can be Special again in Vulture. This is a long-read well worth your time. Spoiler alert: It’s all about making fake humans (you know, so we don’t need any new actors…)

  TechDirt gives us the dirt on the MPAA and RIAA trying to revitalize SOPA again. This shit just never ends. As Masnick explains (and eerily timely given my above comments): “In short, here are the major copyright industry representatives, knowing that everyone's busy off fighting other fires, making quiet inroads towards bringing back SOPA, despite the total clusterfuck it proved to be seven years ago. These guys will never stop in their quest to destroy the internet as we know it, and their push to turn the internet into a broadcast medium controlled by gatekeepers, rather than a communications medium for all of us.”

  

  Pop-Up OTT for Xmas: Yes, that’s right. Unreel is launching Christmas Zone for the holidays – a pop-up, short-term OTT channel full of your Christmas movie favorites. (H/t to Erick Opeka for this link) Ok, some favorites and a lot of public domain stuff. But while I feel OTT is mainly a losing proposition, pop-up OTT might just work better than…

  Bye-Bye Fandor. Within hours of my last newsletter predicting most niche-OTT efforts will fail, in the wake of FilmStruck’s demise, Fandor announced it was closing down (transferring assets). I am not surprised, but having known many of the founders and various staff over the years (who were all amazing folks), I am sad to see them go.

  WHAT I’M READING: BRANDED CONTENT

  GroupNine Media (Thrillist, NowThisNews, etc.) is launching it’s own in-house brand studio, says Adweek.

  PeakTV much? AdWeek has a run-down of the 5 Best shows you didn’t probably watch because you couldn’t find them. Wait, we need Quibi why?

  WHAT I’M READING: IMMERSIVE

  Lance Weiler and his class at Columbia published a great run-down of 52 immersive things to check out. Each one mixes storytelling, play, design and code.

   

• FilmStruck is Dead, but Sub-Genre News is Back

  • Posted on 7th Dec
  • Category: Newsletter

  FilmStruck and the Future of SVOD: Less is not More.

  

  FilmStruck is Dead, which sucks, but it’s just the canary in the OTT-Mine.

  While I was gone for a month, nearly everyone under the sun went ape-shit crazy about FilmStruck shutting its doors. I get this as a cinephile, but I also guessed it wouldn’t last too long when it launched, and amongst all the great stories about its demise (see a few links below), I think the perspective that’s missing is precisely what AT&T/WarnerMedia figured out – niche channels won’t survive in the oncoming content wars.

  Less is not more. More is where it’s at and here to stay, because they didn’t just shut the channel, they announced it would be part of a bigger offering – TCM and other “niche” content will be part of a future AT&T WarnerMedia offering that features not just the Classics, but also a lot of everything else.

  But that ruins the niche, aficionado experience you say? Nope. Study after study has shown that people who like Classic films, or films about any other niche, also happen to just love films and want to access a bit of everything. The most famous of these studies was Anita Elberse way back when (2008) arguing about the long-tail, and guess what – she’s still right.

  If you like movies at all, you will find your way all the way back to Tarantino (cringe, I know, but I sometimes teach and that’s all these kids remember anymore), or way back to Scorsese, or even to Kurosawa, and maybe sideways to Mekas (or go crazy and find Barbara Hammer, or Gordon Parks, or…). But it’s not just about finding history; it’s that people with any taste in any subject, tend to have broad tastes. I find it easier to think about in music terms – if you like Robert Glasper, you probably also like Common, avant-garde jazz, Q-Tip, Kendrick Lamar, Esperanza Spalding and lots of other music too (they’ve all collaborated together). The notion of someone who only likes obscure Japanese noise music is just wrong – the more niche you get in your tastes, the more likely you are to also like a wider range of stuff.

  And this is also true for the average Josephine. Why spend $6 bucks a month on all the obscure titles you want from Fandor, if you could spend $8-13 a month and get those plus some Disney titles. In an attention economy of super-abundance, my dollar is going to the widest catalogues, not the most “special.” Wait, what? Doesn’t curation rule online? Yes, but within platforms not between them – and this is the mistake every OTT operator is making. Including Netflix. Have a lot; have the best too. Help me find it through better curatorial tools within your site, so I can weed out what I don’t want to see, but jeesh – if my parents show up at my house and don’t want to watch Stan Brakhage films all weekend, I better have Won’t You Be My Neighbor to stop some fights real fast.

  Here’s some of the better FilmStruck death links if you missed the shit-storm:

  The Guardian telling us dark days are ahead.

  The LA Times saying streaming will erase movie history

  Deadline on one of the many petitions to save FilmStruck

  Deadline on another petitionThe Hollywood Reporter letting such petitioners take some kind of credit for saving FilmStruck (ahem, they just announced their plans a little earlier, but thanks!)

  Sherry Brennan of Fox in MultiChannel being the only adult in the room, telling us “only a handful of platforms can support themselves in the niche OTT world,” and breaking the news that only a small number of subscription-based over-the-top services have more than 100,000 subscribers at this point,” And most of them are churning through customers once they try the free trial period.

  John Stankey explaining to the NYT that FilmStruck titles will be on a new WarnerMedia streaming service in 2019.

  The Hollywood Reporter on the possible tiered costs of this new service

  But if you want to really get in an argument about FilmStruck, make sure you read Katherine Groo in perhaps the most interesting take on FilmStruck of all – that it wasn’t good for movies – in WaPo. Love this: “The failure of such a short-lived service cannot possibly be a threat to film history in any way that matters. Rather, it is a crisis in the digital fantasies of the 21st century: that (privileged) people can have on-demand access to the wealth of human culture.” Or, take this: “The argument that we need immersion in the masters of film to make digital images for streaming platforms is either a category error or an effort to protect against the future — that is, to ensure that whatever is to come resembles the powers of the past. If the concern were really about access, rather than taste, privilege, auteurism and connoisseurship, the people lamenting FilmStruck might be advocating for greater funding to film libraries and archives and more experimental models of open access and public engagement. What we need is not a deep introduction to narrow “fundamentals” but a more expansive and inclusive understanding of what film is, can be and has been.” Wowza!

  What I’m Reading: Film

  Meanwhile, no one watches film anyways, they’re too busy watching squishies and ToysReview: While not enough people watched FilmStruck to save it, The WSJ reports on Squish Toys, and how one Holly Woodruff’s got a 49-minute video of her hands squeezing-and-releasing more than 700 squishies one-by-one that has been watched 3.1 million times. “Most fans—some of them adults—watch the videos to relax, Ms. Woodruff says.”

  And nearly everyone covered the BBC’s story about seven year-old Ryan ToysReview pulling in $22-Million a year with a golly gee-whiz attitude. But what this really shows is that nearly 14 years after YouTube was founded, the world just wants to watch itself make funny videos, and has little time for what Hollywood wants to make. Seriously, YouTube has spent billions trying to get people to watch “professional” content, and people like Katzenberg are raising billions more to make “high end-quality” content, when clearly the internet has spoken, and it thinks UGC is just fine.

  But if they are, they might as well just use Kanopy. Because as IndieWire reports, A24 just made their entire catalogue available for free on Kanopy – to anyone with a library card. Why are people even bothering to launch other services?

  Why is gaming so absent from Film Fests? That’s what I wondered, as I read this brilliant editorial about the artistry of Red Dead Redemption 2 in the NYT from Peter Suderman of Reason.com. Seems to me that all of the “cutting edge” programs at places like Sundance, Tribeca, etc. spend a lot of time pushing VR and other interactive platforms and not gaming; yet games are so clearly the only form of current and future narrative art that are both currently working and popular. The bias against games as narrative art continues.

  Release windows are shrinking? Not so fast argues Colin Dixon in nScreenMedia, who gives three good reasons PVOD (premium VOD) will fail: Disney won’t do it; box office is increasing; and theater owners still don’t see anything to gain.

  Some asshole wants to shut down the Quad for noise disturbances, reports the NYT, but thank God its owner, Charles Cohen, just bought Landmark and can make his noise wherever he wants now. Seriously though, who are these fucks moving to NYC and ruining our lives when existing landmarks mess with their condo-living?

  What I’m Reading: Branded Content

  Marriott is going to theaters reports DigiDay. Marriott took it’s StoryBooked series to 30 theaters in 28 markets, aired it as an hour-long broadcast on FYI, and then again on A&E before making it available for streaming online through April, 2019. Multi-platorm plays are getting bigger, because only bigger breaks through the noise.

  And AdWeek explains why, in a pretty good article on how brands are taking control of their narratives by making more content, longer content, and controlling how it gets to consumers.

  What’s next, the article asks in summary: “Best of all, brands can target who they want to see this content across whatever platforms they choose. They don’t need to pay to shout this content across a major TV network but can instead seek out the market that wants this content how and when they want it.

  It’s a new era for content. The only question now is how far will brands go. Could we be watching the Patagonia Network on our televisions soon?”

  Well, given how poorly OTT channels are working out, as explained above, maybe not. But brands might have a better go at it than traditional film companies.

  Maybe that’s because Branded Content makes people happy. So says RealEyes and Turner in a study they released that was picked up by AdAge. But if you read this, you may vomit. I did.

  Why is this Newsletter so Late?

  Sorry I didn’t post for a few weeks, but I was producing a movie, which kept me too busy to write a newsletter, and that's why this is a summary about old news. But this also gives me a chance to make a shameless plug for the great press we got in Deadline for our cast on The Outside Story, by Casimir Nozkowski, which just wrapped shooting in Brooklyn. Can’t wait to bring this film to you next year.

• DocNYC and other news

  • Posted on 1st Nov
  • Category: Newsletter

  DOCNYC hits NYC Nov 8-15^th.

  DOCNYC has grown to be the largest doc fest in the US (I don’t know how they measure this…) and it’s got a stellar line-up this year. There are a lot of films playing, but I’m gonna pitch just one for you to watch – and I’m biased because I’ve been consulting with the filmmakers for over a year now – Stars in the Sky: A Hunting Story by Steve Rinella. I am willing to bet that 100% of my little reading audience doesn’t hunt – and has probably never fired a gun and has no interest. That’s ok. You can even be anti-hunting. But Steve Rinella is not only a good filmmaker, he’s the Anthony Bourdain of hunting – he knows his stuff, knows the arguments for and against, and this film will open your mind to thinking about it a little differently. And even if it doesn’t – you’ll learn a lot about how hunters and fishers contribute to our public lands. Check it out on Nov 11^th.

  

  But to me, the best thing about DocNYC is the DocNYC Pro program – panels, keynotes/manifestos and pitch sessions. This is where you can really learn the state of the industry and put faces with names on those industry folks you want to get to know. Check out the full line-up for DocNYC Pro Here.

  

  Mass Media Expo takes place in Boston this Saturday, and I am speaking on a panel about branded content, with my friend Rob Sheard of Zero Point Zero (producers of Stars in the Sky, mentioned above), and Megan Cunningham of Magnet Media. Both of these people are way smarter about the future of branded content than me, so make sure to come see us if you are near Boston. They’ve also got a great set of panels, including one about the state of OTT and cord cutting, and there’s also an Exhibitor’s Hall with many great vendors.

  The Outside Story shoots Nov 10-30. I won’t be at DocNYC though, because shameless plug – I’m producing this great indie film at the same time. This is why this is a short post this week, and it also means I won’t be writing newsletters again til December.

  What I’m Reading: Film:

  There’s a glut of SVOD Channels – Milking Genre Fans, and people are getting sick of it already, reports Endgadget. As the writer points out: “So I'm spending a bunch of money on shows I don't even watch... It's basically no different from having cable. Cord cutters have long extolled the virtues of an "a la carte" model of TV consumption, where you pay only for what you actually want. Well, congratulations! We're there, and it stopped being cheap a while ago. (No wonder piracy's going back up.) Geeks might be fond of cutting the cord, but we're also quite fond of BitTorrent.” My take: this is unsustainable for customers and the folks launching these channels. I see a big shake-out in a year or two, in addition to the recent loss of FilmStruck. No one wants a la carte cable for more money. It just don’t compute. We either need some bundling of services, or this just won’t work.

  The LA Film Festival is no More, and that's Great: Variety reports that Film Independent is shutting down the LA Film Festival. Why do I say this is great? I actually feel bad for the people losing their jobs, and hope Film Independent helps them find new homes, but I think it's great when an organization assesses it's situation and admits it can do something better. Kudos to Josh Welsh and the leadership team there for re-focusing on how to better serve indie filmmakers through year-round programming. As board chair Mary Sweeney told Variety: "“In the end, we concluded that the organization should explore a more nimble, sustainable form of exhibiting and celebrating independent film artists year round.” That's a great idea. I hope more film organizations take it to heart and think about what they may do differently as well (and no, not all of them should shut their fests, but some should).

• WithoutABox Is Dead and Mixed Reality Should Be?

  • Posted on 1st Nov
  • Category: Newsletter

  WAB Patent

  WithoutaBox is dead, reports Deadline, among thousands of others. Way back when in 2000 I was running the Atlanta Film Festival and got a call from a friend asking if we’d be a founding film festival of a new submission service. In all honesty, the staff and I assumed this thing would die off sooner than it would make our lives any easier, but it actually worked. Soon we were among hundreds of film festivals using it to streamline submissions – and then acceptances and rejections, and it was pretty cool (for a time).

  At first it made submissions easier, then it contributed to a glut of submissions. Then things started going downhill. Amazon/IMDB bought it, and seemingly decided to freeze it in time with no improvements. And they could because they had Patent number US6829612, which prevented anyone from making a copycat system. Stephen Follows wrote about it back in 2013, and it's a good read if you want to understand all that went wrong with WAB.

  Everyone in film knows this story well, but suffice it to say – Film Freeway finally figured out how to get around the patent crap and build a better service. WAB noticed it was losing business, and bribed many of the big festivals to keep using them, and actually made it start working again (design improvements mainly). Now every filmmaker has to keep an account with both services to apply to film festivals (among a few, small other ones), since each festival uses one or the other.

  But Amazon has finally decided to kill it off. No one seems to know why. Out of all the press, I haven't found anyone who makes even a good guess. Some think it got expensive to bribe festivals with sponsorships. But Amazon is too rich for that. And it can't be the cost of keeping up the service or holding the data, when Amazon owns AWS. My guess is that Amazon figured out they were getting all of the data they need about films elsewhere, and a whole chunk of that data was just useless. But even I am not sure of why.

  So Long WithoutABox. Long live Film Freeway (and the few other upstarts).

  But… while I love Film Freeway, I still can’t figure out why Vimeo hasn’t taken ownership of this space? We all use Vimeo for every aspect of film viewing, why not just close the loop and become a better WAB/Cinando? That would be a service for the industry that would be a nice tidy business for them.

  One can dream…

  What I’m Reading: Film:

  A24 Redfines the Sountrack as a Playlist: The WSJ reports (might be pay-walled for some) that instead of licensing the music (again) from studios, A24 just made a great playlist of the songs from Jonah Hill’s Mid90s. The songs are already there for free, so no money needed to exchange hands, and…earned media as well people.

  What I’m Reading Mixed Reality:

  Is MagicLeap and Mixed Reality a big Con? That’s what Gizmodo thinks (via Redef). Not much to add here, it's all true.

  What I’m Reading: Branded Content

  Robbie Bond, founder of Kids Speak for Parks, wants you to vote! This comes from Patagonia, and it’s all of 23 seconds, but combined with a great and simple website, it’s great stuff. Patagonia is taking the lead in corporations pushing citizens to vote and make their voices heard – especially in support of public lands and the environment. Kudos to them, and everyone else who is pushing people to vote in the Midterms. Go vote!

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