Random Culture

Mumblecore

Ever heard of Mumblecore? It's been around for a little while, but some notable news sources, such as the NY Times and Village Voice are just now picking up on it. The Wikipedia entry for Mumblecore defines it as:

An independent filmmaking movement characterized by ultra-low budget production, focus on personal relationships between twenty-somethings, improvised scripts, and non-professional actors.

Need some examples? Andrew Bujalski's "Funny Ha Ha" kicked off the movement. So what's the big deal? And why the heck are you writing about a film movement on this blog?

The NY Times points out a fundamental connection between the Mumblecore movement and technology:

Mumblecore bespeaks a true 21st-century sensibility, reflective of MySpace-like social networks and the voyeurism and intimacy of YouTube. It also signals a paradigm shift in how movies are made and how they find an audience. “This is the first time, mostly because of technology, that someone like me can go out and make a film with no money and no connections,” said Aaron Katz

Technology has clearly changed not only the way movies are being made, but their distribution as well. The Mumblecore movement is a great example of filmmakers taking more of a DIY approach. This is just the beginning.

Link via Fimoculous.

Simpsons Promo Swiped from Leo Burnett?

According to NPR's "Morning Edition" from yesterday, July 18th, it looks like the clever promotion for the Simpson's Movie may have been "co-opted" from Leo Burnett when they pitched the business.

Listen to Morning Edition's take on the story.

Sad to hear, if it's true, that one of the best promotions I've seen may have been the result of this kind of behavior.

Mark Cuban: Hating on YouTube Again

I don't quite understand why YouTube rubs Mark Cuban the wrong way, but it clearly does. You may remember his comments in September of last year when Google announced they were purchasing YouTube. Well, he's at it again, with some very strange comments in light of the Oscars. Mark is arguing that the Oscars, as well as other "content creators" are being hurt by YouTube because they're losing control of the content as well as the brand. So what does he advocate? From Mark Cuban's blog:

"To capture Youtube viewers, the first step would be to OVERWHELM Youtube with partial clips of full length that tease Youtube users and point them to Oscars.com. For this Will Ferrell clip, I would have created a video that showed the first 10 secs of the clip, then had 4 minutes of a billboard that said " Great videos from the Oscars telecast and exclusive behind the scenes videos are all available at Oscars.com"

IN addition to the billboard in the video  you would have an active link to Oscars.com on the Youtube video page. I wouldnt post this video 1 time. I would post this video 100 times."

Say what? Not only is the idea of Mark Cuban advocating spamming YouTube preposterous, what does he want to do, turn YouTube into nothing more than a 10 second preview site? Mark has a bias because he himself is a "content creator", with his entertainment ventures. But it's an irrational bias. There are plenty of other "content creators" who have embraced YouTube, and certainly not in the manner he's advocating. CBS, Showtime and many others have formed partnerships with YouTube to distribute their content, because they KNOW that it isn't going away anytime soon. In fact, YouTube traffic is still growing at an astronomical rate.

Why can't someone who's supposed to be at the forefront of technology not come to terms with this? Frankly, I'm surprised, Mr. Cuban. Read his full comments here.

Link via Podcasting News.

Documentary: 8 Bit

8 Bit is an interesting new documentary about video games and their influence on art, music and more. Check out the trailer below:

"The Fountain" Experience

Warner Brothers has launched an "experience" website for Darren Aaronofsky's new movie, The Fountain. It's definitely not your average website experience, reminiscent of the Donnie Darko and Requiem for a Dream sites. Definitely worth checking out, if you have some time to surf around and figure out what to click on. No word on who created the site.

M&M'S + Hieronymus Bosch

Mars has created an advergame to promote dark chocolate M&M'S. Keeping in line with the "dark" theme, the Dark M&M'S Movie Challenge puts users on a mission to guess the titles of "dark movies" as illustrated in a Hieronymus Bosch-like "dark" painting.

Link via Three Minds @ Organic.

NYC Film Location Mashup

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the New York City Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting, iDeutsch created an interactive Yahoo! Map mashup that allows visitors to see where scenes from their favorite movies and television shows were shot in New York.

iTunes Has Movies!

The iTunes Music Store has updated, and is now selling movies. If you remember my post at the end of August, Business Week speculated that Apple would be charging $14.99 per movie, an increase from the original $9.99 that Steve Jobs wanted to charge. Well, it looks like there was an even compromise, and new releases are selling for $12.99. Older movies are selling for $9.99. At least, that's how I think it works, although I wouldn't say "The Life Aquatic" is a new release, and it's selling for $12.99.

I've got kind of a lukewarm reaction to this. It's still not attractive for me to get a small discount on new releases, since many new releases can be bought for $19.99. But it will be interesting to see what happens with the older releases. The Long Tail in action, baby!

The weirdest thing in all of this, I think, is how Apple has branded the store. First it was the iTunes Music Store... now it's called the iTunes Store. They dropped the music, but they haven't dropped the "Tunes." Anyone think we may see iStore or iDownload any time soon?

Update: Engadget has some great info around this subject from the Steve Jobs keynote. A couple interesting facts from that presentation:

• iTunes has a market share of 88% for legal US downloads
• iTunes is the 5th largest reseller of music in the US, behind Amazon, projected to surpass Amazon in January
• 45 million TV shows have been downloaded from iTunes since last October
• Resolution of video has increased to 640x480.

Ghost Rider Website

Check out the website Sony Pictures created for the upcoming comic book adaptation movie, Ghost Rider. Good integration of video and flash, and there's even a fairly entertaining flash game.

iTunes Movie Sales Coming Mid-September

Business Week reports that Apple will be announcing the ability to buy movies from iTunes in mid-September. According to Business Week:

"The price Apple hopes to charge, now set at $14.99 for new releases and $9.99 for older movies, has risen from Jobs's initial plan to offer new flicks for $9.99, say industry insiders."

Talk about disappointment. I certainly wouldn't pay $14.99 for a proprietary formatted, lower resolution movie when I can buy the DVD for a few bucks more and do whatever I want with it. I'm not saying people won't pay... they will. So far, it looks like Apple has only gotten Walt Disney signed up for sales, but that's how it all started selling television episodes. All it took was some initial small successes, and everyone else jumped at the opportunity.

Read the full Business Week article here.

HBO Free Online Television?

HBO has released one of its original documentary films, Too Hot Not to Handle, in its entirety as a podcast. While HBO has been podcasting for a while, this is a new move for them, and reflects a larger shift in the television industry towards offering viewing of complete content online. This also may be a first step for HBO to test the waters. I sure would like to see them follow the footsteps of ABC's recent success.

Watch the whole thing in the HBO Documentary Films podcast. Link via Podcasting News.

Marketing "Snakes on a Plane"

As a part of the marketing campaign for the upcoming "Snakes on A Plane" movie, you can send your friend a personalized phone call or message from Samuel L. Jackson. We've seen this type of phone functionality before, but it's always fun to send these to coworkers and friends.

Miami Vice & Google Maps

The official site for the upcoming Miami Vice movie has created a Google Maps mashup that educates visitors on the history of the city, as well as the history of crime in Miami.

Link via Google Maps Mania.

You Tube: 100 Million Videos A Day

That's right... YouTube has announced this morning that it's serving 100 million video views every day! Some other items of note:

• YouTube videos are 60% of all videos viewed online
• YouTube has 20 million unique users each month
• 65,000 videos uploaded daily, up from 50,000 in May

YouTube is unstoppable. You can't argue with those traffic numbers. People can speculate about how much it's costing them for bandwidth, but those traffic numbers are "droolworthy." That's not up for debate. They just need a better advertising model than Google AdSense, and they'll be golden.

The Design Behind Gore's Presentation

I saw "An Inconvenient Truth" this weekend, the Al Gore movie about global warming. Politics aside, if you've seen any slides of the actual presentation Gore has been giving, the design is awe inspiring.

This morning, I found a post on the Presentation Zen blog about the company behind the design of this presentation, Duarte Design. They're a Silicon Valley design firm that's got a good reputation in presentation design and infographics.

I've definitely got powerpoint envy after seeing this.

X-Men + Google Maps Mashup

As a promotion for the upcoming X-Men movie, they've released a pretty cool Google Maps mashup. You can find it at: Xplanet.net. On the site, visitors can register themselves as mutants and create a profile based on their location. Other visitors can then browse these profiles using a Google Maps interface.

Another Google Movie Promotion

The recent Da Vinci Code Quest on Google marked one of the first times Google "teamed up" with an advertiser outside of search or contextual ads. Google also recently teamed up with Nike to create the Joga.com soccer community. I speculated about whether we'd see more of this in the future, and I was wrong. Google is definitely pursuing more of these relationships, and seems to be developing a "thing" for Hollywood.

In this latest promotion, Google has teamed up with The Breakup. On the Google Video site, you can upload your own "breakup" video and get it featured on Google Video, or on the Google Video Blog.

Link via Micropersuasion.

Another Da Vinci Code Game: Eurostar

The DaVinci Code promotions abound... here's one of the latest, the "Eurostar Quest." It's a very well done site, with interesting games and great design from the folks at de-construct. In fact, the games have more to do with learning about London and Paris than the DaVinci Code plot.

Remix Contest: A Scanner Darkly

The RES Media Group has teamed up with Warner Bros. to create the "A Scanner Darkly Trailer Remix Contest." Participants download the trailer elements, remix them and submit their entry to Jumpcut.com. The prizes include lots of great digital video editing schwag, and the grand prize winner also gets a trip for two to the US premiere of the movie.

Oh yeah... if you haven't seen the official trailer for the movie, you can watch it here.

Sony Ericsson DaVinci Code Game

Google isn't the only one doing a DaVinci Code game. Sony Ericsson has launched the "DaVinci Code Trail" game. Check it out at: Sonyericsson.com/davinci. You'll have to select the UK as your country, since it doesn't appear that the game is available for the US.

I actually enjoyed these puzzles more than the pretty easy Google puzzles, which have become a little repetitive over the last few weeks. But hey, the Google prizes are much better.

Veoh? Vimeo is Real YouTube Competition

There's been some buzz this week about Veoh Networks, a start up that's positioned itself to compete with YouTube. In fact, former Disney chairman and chief executive and Michael Eisner is SO convinced that he put his own money into a recent $12.5 million second round of funding for Veoh.

Well, folks... Michael Eisner should have given his money to these guys: Vimeo.

Vimeo is a video sharing service that's very similar to YouTube. Vimeo has been around since November 2004, and was created by Connected Ventures, the same guys that started Busted Tees, CollegeHumor.com, and the Big Shocker!

Just a few days ago, they completely relaunched Vimeo, and it's looking REALLY good. From a features standpoint, it can hang right there with YouTube and the rest, allowing users to share, download and rate clips. It also looks 5,000 times better than Veoh... and even YouTube, for that matter.

The only thing I'm disappointed about? Vimeo has shot themselves in the foot by requiring people to sign up on the front end. This severely limits their potential as a portal where people go to browse videos. If they get rid of this sign up barrier, they could give YouTube a run for their money. I will credit them, though, that one of the interesting aspects they're using registration for is to create a more "social networking" type of video destination. Think MySpace for videos, sort of.

Check out Vimeo for yourself. You won't be disappointed (except maybe for the sign up thing).

Google Promoting DaVinci Code

In an unprecedented move, Google has teamed up with Sony Pictures to promote the upcoming DaVinci Code movie. The promotion involves adding a DaVinci Code widget to your personalized Google homepage, where players are prompted to solve a series of puzzles. Start playing the game here.

According to the official Google Blog, the puzzles will "be released over the next 24 days, in the form of six different challenges at four difficulty levels."

And there are some pretty good prizes as well, including a $100,000 grand prize package that includes a trip to Paris, Rome and London.

This is a really big deal... Google has traditionally shied away from giving advertisers any outlets beyond Adwords. So are we likely to see more promotions like this? I'm not sure that we will. This particular promotion seems to stem more out of a passion for the material than anything else. But who knows?

Web 2.0 Won't Make Your Movie Better

Stuart Elliot has an article in the New York Times today that uses an upcoming movie, "Take the Lead", as an example of cutting edge marketing using mashups, blogs, social media and other Web 2.0 measures.

So here's a description of the movie... "Take the Lead" stars Antonio Banderas as a professional ballroom dancer teaching New York City school kids how to dance. Blah Blah Blah...

In other words, this movie will shortly be available on DVD.

But for such an awful movie, New Line Cinema really went all out on the site. Visit Taketheleadmovie.com and you'll see a music mashup feature that allows you to blend different songs together, even download your creation as an MP3. There's also a "virtual dancer" feature that allows you to create a video dance routine. There's an advergame for a "virtual dance challenge", similar to dance dance revolution. New Line Also has a blog supporting one of the sweepstakes for the movie.

Now, there are some issues with the way many of these features have been executed. The blog, for example, is published by someone else. The "virtual dancer" is REALLY slow and doesn't quite keep up with the music, and the music mashup application has some usability challenges.

My overall impression? Overkill. It feels to me like the online marketing is clearly trying to compensate for an inferior product. Quality, not quantity...

Link via Jupiter Research Analyst David Card's Blog.

Amazon Launches Podcast!

Amazon has just launched Amazon Wire, a podcast featuring exclusive interviews with authors, musicians, movie directors and other people behind the products they sell. Visit Amazon Wire at: Amazon.com/podcast.

The first episode includes interviews with Steven Soderbergh, Blondie, the Flaming Lips and Freakonomics author Stephen J. Dubner. I have to say... it's a well produced podcast, with good audio and pretty interesting content. In fact, I'll subscribe as long as they can update it at least once a week. If you'd like to subscribe to Amazon Wire, click here to open the podcast directly though your iTunes.

Universal Pictures' Big Mistake

Just last week, I was griping about Apple's indication that they might charge $10 for a movie download... That was nothing. News is now circulating that Universal Pictures will have movies available for download in the UK at a whopping $35.

I'm speechless.

Why the high price tag? According to this CNN article, it looks like that $35 price gets you a download of the movie for a laptop, one for a portable device and a DVD in the mail. The initial batch of movies available is limited to around 30, including titles like "The Bourne Supremacy", "Nanny McPhee" and "Bridget Jones Diary."

I'm not convinced that people are going to find this worth the money. You can buy "The Bourne Supremacy" DVD on Amazon for $13.99, and have everything Universal is offering. And when you look at that price point, I still think $9.99 is too much to pay for a movie on iTunes.

Come on Universal... just give Apple a call.

iTunes $10 Movie Downloads?

Everyone fully expects that iTunes will begin offering movie downloads. Sure enough, a few days ago the first movie was spotted on iTunes. It was a Disney "made for TV" movie called High School Musical. The price was the same $1.99 as all the other TV shows. However, the price was soon updated to $9.99!

I don't know about you, but $10 is a heck of a lot of money to pay for a low quality video file of a movie. So what's the right price? $4.99? $5.99? I can tell you that I won't be buying any $9.99 movies from iTunes anytime soon.

Link via Business 2.0 Blog.

Mission Impossible 3 Viral

Paramount is promoting the Mission Impossible 3 movie with an online treasure hunt. Actually, they're calling it the "Ultimate Mission." The idea is that from now until May, people will be surfing the web looking for original short films that include clues about the movie.

Sure, a treasure hunt isn't the most original idea, but I like that they're including the short film aspect in it.

Link via AdJab.

The Mysterious iTunes User

Nielsen/Netratings has released a report (pdf) about the mysterious iTunes user. According to the report, about 14% of the active Internet population used iTunes in December. In addition, Nielsen/Netratings says that iTunes traffic increased 241% over the last year.

The study also reveals some interesting demographic and behavioral details about iTunes users. iTunes users are fairly even in the gender split, at 54% male, 46% female. They like Volkswagen, Audi and Subaru, and have a preference for hard cider? What the heck, hard cider?

I'd say we should take these numbers with a grain of salt. Nielsen/Netratings didn't reveal their methodology for this report, and it's likely that it has about the same credibility as their DVR panel, which was based on 60 DVRs. You can read more about that fiasco here.

Link via AdFreak.

Madonna.com Redesigns

Madonna.com has redesigned. I'm not a Madonna fan, but It's a great looking site. One of the things I was impressed most with is the "mobile" subscription offered as a global element right alongside email subscription. Keep that thought.

Movietickets.com Podcasts

Movietickets.com has joined the world of podcasting. They're offering an audio synopsis for some new releases that are delivered via podcasts. You can check out the full list of podcasts here.

MTV Buys IFILM

sIt's official, MTV bought IFILM for $49 million. What's interesting is that IFILM didn't pull down that much more than Weblogs, Inc. I guess I assumed IFILM would go for more. Did MTV Networks get a deal?

Puma Bike Documentary

Puma has turned their sponsorship of NYC bike messenger races into a documentary. "Messenger" follows the co-captain of Team PUMA, formed from those sponsored races, for a glimpse at a "day in the life" of bike messengers in New York. It was created with the folks at Cinecycle. You can view the teaser here... and what's more, you can actually get the DVD sent to you for free.

Link via Influx Insights.

Cry Wolf Game

A coworker, Brian, pointed me to a great site that's been launched to support the upcoming horror movie, "Cry Wolf." I'm sure you've seen the previews with a killer talking to people on AOL Instant Messenger. They've launched a site at www.crywolfgame.com. It's got a great game where you get a group of 15 people and try to figure out which ones are the killers through chatting with one another. You need a free AOL account to play the game, but it's well worth it.

Kiss your productivity goodbye.

Corpse Bride Website

Wow... Check out the official website for Tim Burton's upcoming movie, Corpse Bride. It takes a while to load, but is worth the wait... did I mention the loading?

Link via Armchair Media's Blog.

Sony Pictures Mobile

Sony Pictures is stepping into the mobile arena in Europe. They've announced that a mobile site will be created for every film and DVD release. In addition, they'll be pushing these mobile sites in other advertising, such as print, outdoor and online ads.

Link via Adverblog.

BK: Build Your Own Comic

Burger King has launched a great site in support of the new Fantastic 4 movie, allowing users to build their own Fantastic 4 comic. Users can customize the pictures and text... which leaves it open to some interesting interpretations, I'm sure. This is worth checking out...

Link via Adverblog.

Attack of the Movie Blogs

The Los Angeles Times has a great article about the rise of blogs for offering a "behind-the-scenes" look at movies. Many are being written by the directors of upcoming movies. Currently, you can find the following folks blogging: Rob Zombie, Peter Jackson and David Duchovny, to name a few. Rob Zombie and David Duchovny are both blogging through Lion's Gate Films. Lion's Gate appears to be planning for many more future blogs, as they've adopted a template format that lends itself well to adding new directors into the mix. As the LA Times article points out, these blogs have been very effective at getting a fan base excited. As the president of Warner Bros. domestic marketing points out "It makes those fans think, 'Hey, they're giving us content that's exclusive to us before it goes to the masses.' "

And there may be life for these blogs even after the movie has come and gone. One of the most interesting items in the article is that Zach Braff's "Garden State" blog still sees an enormous amount of activity, even though the movie left the theaters a while back, and is already on DVD. Is that just celebrity appeal?

Link via business2blog.

Netflix Rebounds

With the market for online DVD rental getting more and more players, Netflix has announced a big win. Wal-Mart is turning over its online DVD rental service to Netflix, and is urging its current users to transition over to the service. This deal breathes significant life into Netflix, who many people thought might succumb to the pressure of having such large competitors as Wal-Mart and Blockbuster. Netflix, in return, will promote Wal-Mart DVD sales.

Link via AdPulp.

Get Your StarWars.com Blog

Paid members of the official Star Wars fan club will now be able to have their own blog at StarWars.com. As Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion points out, this is similar to Baseball's MLBlogs.com offering... I posted before about some of the shortcomings of that effort. Hopefully the Star Wars blogs can overcome some of those issues with such a rabid fan base.

Product Placement Fever

Wow... there's getting to be so much product placement now that you can easily spot them in the trailers. I came across the trailer for "The Man", a new movie with Samuel Jackson and Eugene Levy. In the trailer, I spotted at least 2 product placement deals... one for USA Today and another for Blockbuster. Check out the trailer for yourself.

The Blockbuster placement is weird, as there's a rental case in the trunk of a character's car... It's only there for a second, so you have to watch carefully. The USA Today product placement is pretty blatant, as you can see here.

Hmm... I wonder how many others I can spot in other trailers? Actually, I wonder if any of these companies stipulate inclusion in the trailer?

Fake DVDs in Shanghai

Slate has a great article about DVD and software piracy in Shanghai. Henry Blodget, the author, shows how casually the average Shanghai resident views buying these "pirated" materials. One of the most thought provoking comments, I found, was the following comment about how some industries try to liken the theft of digital property and physical property:

"When someone steals a physical product—a car, say, or a DVD from the shelves of Blockbuster—the owner has lost more than a potential sale; he or she has lost inventory. When someone buys a copy of a digital product, however, for which the owner of the copyright has paid nothing, the owner has lost only a potential sale."

And it's clear that this isn't going to stop anytime soon.

Link via Kottke.

Paris Hilton Podcasting

Podcasting has officially reached it's peak in popularity, as Paris Hilton has her own podcast to promote the new Stephen King movie, House of Wax... We're pretty sure her character isn't going to make it through the movie, so you might as well listen while you can.

Link via B.L. Ochman's weblog.

Kung Fu Hustle Site

The website has been launched for the upcoming Steven Chow movie "Kung Fu Hustle." Make sure to watch the trailers and play the flash games.

Sin City: Official Site

The Official site is up for the new "Sin City" movie.  It's based on the graphic novels by Frank Miller, and looks to be REALLY good. The movie is directed by Robert Rodriguez and stars Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Jessica Alba and Mickey Rourke, just to name a few. I'll be there on April 1, when it opens.

Viral Marketing: Ring 2

I ran across a couple of sites that look like viral marketing efforts for the release of "The Ring 2."
Here they are:

http://www.she-is-here.com/
http://www.the-tape.com/
http://www.an-open-letter.com/

And there are a couple others... Obviously there are some giveaways about why these are sites created for promotion of the movie...

1.) similar URL structure
2.) all whois entries are private
3.) sites are all stylistically similar

This particular effort doesn't seem to do anything really distinguished in terms of the "fake site" technique. It's too bad... I think the subject matter has the potential for something really interesting.

Future of Independent Film

Wired has a great article about how Hal Hartley, a successful independent filmmaker, is trying a new way to release films, without the help of big movie studios...

We're sure to see much more of this in the near future. After all, no one says you HAVE to follow a prescribed formula of releasing movies in theaters, and then on video. And the cost of making a movies seems to be going down, particularly for independent filmmakers.

Kind of on the same topic... Why not have the immediate DVD release of movies? We usually all have to wait.

Sundance Shorts

Atom Films has a great spotlight collection up for the short films from the 2005 Sundance film festival. They're also blogging from the festival. Check out the official Atom Films blog: blog.atomfilms.com

Crockett and Tubbs Redux

Hollywood has been "regurgitating" quite a bit of material. No comic book or successful video games are safe, and not even your favorite TV shows are safe. We heard a while ago that they're remaking the Dukes of Hazard with Jessica Simpson and Johnny Knoxville...

But for the love of everything holy... keep your hands off of Miami Vice!

That's right, there is now a Miami Vice movie in the works, starring none other than Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx... IMDB has made it official.

Update: This is just the beginning... as posted on Newstoday, there's also a Logan's Run movie being made. And the best part... the 6 Million Dollar Man is being made starring Jim Carrey... wtf?

War of the Willy Wonkas

Screenhead just posted a link to the trailer for the new Willy Wonka movie. Screenhead seems to be a little critical of it, and I have to admit there are some things that seem a little disconcerting. The music is pretty annoying, and Johnny Depp does seem to be trying a little too hard... It came so naturally to Gene Wilder.

Hollywood is running out of movies to remake, either... The new War of the Worlds movie trailer is out as well.