Digital Daily » film

Insert Lame "Mama Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away" Reference Here

John Paczkowski — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:40:46 +0000

With 70 percent of the its revenue now coming from digital sales and the unstoppable transition from analog to digital all but complete, Eastman Kodak (EK) is retiring Kodachrome. Seems “a fraction of one percent of Kodak’s film sales” just wasn’t enough to keep the venerable old color film around for a little while longer.

Thankfully, we’ll always have that wonderful Paul Simon song by which to remember it.

Kodachrome was on the market for 74 years–all those birthday parties and National Geographic covers. But you can’t stop progress, as Steve McCurry, who snapped what may well be the most famous Kodachrome photo ever (above), notes.

“The early part of my career was dominated by Kodachrome, and I reached for that film to shoot some of my most memorable images,” said McCurry. “While Kodachrome Film was very good to me, I have since moved on to other films and digital to create my images. In fact, when I returned to shoot the ‘Afghan Girl’ 17 years later, I used Kodak’s E100VS film to create that image, rather than Kodachrome Film as with the original.”

[Image credit: Steve McCurry via Wikipedia]

If This Monetization Plan Doesn't Work Out, There's Always the Amazon Tip Jar

John Paczkowski — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:34:05 +0000

Eventually we’d like to make money out of it.”

Google CEO Eric Schmidt on YouTube

It’s been two years since the $1.65 billion acquisition and Google (GOOG) has yet to truly monetize YouTube. And while Google CEO Eric Schmidt insists the company has the “luxury of time” as it searches for ways to recoup its investment in the popular video site, it’s clear the issue is gradually becoming more pressing. “We’re waiting for the innovations,” Schmidt said recently. “The innovation will come. We know it will come. We know it’s there.”

Could the “it” to which Schmidt refers be the new e-commerce platform YouTube is launching? Perhaps. Beginning this week, YouTube is embedding “click-to-buy” links in certain videos on its site, which refer users to affiliate services selling the music featured in them. “Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features,” YouTube explained in a post to the Official Google Blog. “Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products–like songs and video games–related to the content they’re watching on the site.”

An interesting idea. And should it prove successful, it could begin to justify YouTube’s jaw-dropping $1.65 billion purchase price. “This is just the beginning of building a broad, viable e-commerce platform for users and partners on YouTube,” the company explained. “Our vision is to help partners across all industries–from music, to film, to print, to TV–offer useful and relevant products to a large, yet targeted, audience, and generate additional revenue from their content on YouTube beyond the advertising we serve against their videos. And those partners who use our content identification and management system can also enable these links on user-generated content, by using Content ID to claim videos and choose to leave them up on the site.”

Zut Alors! Illegal Downloads Top Box Office Sales in France

John Paczkowski — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:32:42 +0000

French cinephiles are illegally downloading from the Internet as many films as they pay to see in theaters. This according to a new study from the Association Against Audiovisual Piracy (ALPA) that was–My God, THE IRONY–itself leaked to the Internet without its creator’s knowledge or consent. One of the largest studies of its kind, the ALPA effort found that 13.5 million films were illegally downloaded in May, while box office ticket sales for that month were 12.2 million. On average, more than 10 million copies of films are illegally downloaded in France every month. Some 450,000 copies are downloaded daily. Incroyable, but true. “We are facing a major phenomenon that can endanger the film industry and (other) audiovisual industries,” ALPA director Frederic Delacroix told Agence France-Presse. “We did not expect such numbers.”

Steve Ballmer: Tenacious B

John Paczkowski — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:59:00 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Goodbye Sister Disc

John Paczkowski — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:00:44 +0000

Hollywood is finally embracing day-and-date film releases.

Yesterday, Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeffrey Bewkes said that Warner Bros. plans to experiment with VOD releases day-and-date with DVD later this year. And now this morning, Apple (AAPL) announced that a number of major and independent movie studios have agreed to make their films available on iTunes day-and-date with DVD–$9.99 for library title purchases and $14.99 for new release purchases. Among the studios participating in the deal: 20th Century Fox (NWS), Walt Disney Studios (DIS), Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures (VIA), Universal Studios Home Entertainment (GE), Sony Pictures Entertainment (SNE), Lionsgate (LGF), Image Entertainment (DISK) and First Look Studios (FRST.PK).

An impressive lineup and one that clearly heralds a shift in the movie industry’s view of digital distribution. A shift in iTunes movie purchases as well–upward. The removal of Hollywood’s typical 30-day lead time on DVD releases will no doubt boost new-release sales on iTunes, assuming customers don’t mind paying $14.99 for films that lack the extra features and picture quality of their DVD counterparts. It will boost movie studio revenues as well. With no manufacturing and reproduction costs to speak of, margins from day-and-date download releases are presumably quite high.

So much for that hard-fought DVD format war …