13 posts tagged “web”
YouTube is on track to lose $470 million in 2009. Estimated operating costs = $711 million. $360 million of that is on bandwidth costs. In short, YouTube is bleeding a LOT of money.
Still, that probably doesn't make you feel any better about the cost of your own webisode...
Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com
Okay, boys and girls. This stuff is super cool. You can now make your own games and your own worlds even if you don't know how to program. Whoo-hoo! First of all, it's pretty awesome to be able to make your own game or world. But even if your primary focus is on your filmmaking or novels, with all the talk (at least on this blog) of cutting edge marketing for your product, this ought to be a cheap, DIY way to promote your film/book.
With Microsoft's XNA Game Studio, you can make your own games. With this product, you're better off if you know a little programming. They are now live.
With Metaplace, you can build your own virtual world. Just think of the possibilities! I've been watching these guys for about a year. They've had their first beta and have been closed to the public for months. And now, they just opened up their latest beta phase and are accepting applications for early users. Obviously, they're still testing out their system but if you want a taste of the world to come, check it out.
And this little gem is pretty sweet: Little Big Planet. It's a "game" for Playstation 3 that lets you build your own world/game. Check out this demo:
Beet.tv had an online video roundtable this week. The videos of the roundtable are online if you missed their live streaming. They also have a liveblogging session of the roundtable, broken out by minutes.
Sounds like the biggest news is that blip.tv has figured out a way to serve up ads on ipods/iphones and keep track of them. Monetization, of course, is a major issue at these events.
If you missed it and you're interested in seeing one of these things live, there's one going on tonight called "The Next Generation of Advanced Media" in San Francisco hosted by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Cheers,
Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com
Strike.TV is the webisode site that the WGA writers started working on during their strike last year. It launches with 10 webisodes (Variety calls them "skeins" - apparently, webisodes are so last month, but since the terminology hasn't been established, I'll continue to call them webisodes for now). They're written by pros and some have recognizable talent starring in them.
Is this the first webisode channel? It may be. Sure, others have webisodes along with one-offs and user content, but this may be the first pure web serial play. I like the concept. Call out to indie filmmakers -- we need an indie webisode channel as well because it's no good trying to find one-offs. If you can't compete with the star power and mainstream media of Hollywood writers, you can still offer something they don't have yet -- the long tail in a single location.
Susan Ee aka Angelina Jolie
www.feraldream.com
The “Hollywood Goes Silicon Valley” panel at Techcrunch50 is being streamed LIVE at 5PM PST today on their site. It has Joss Whedon, Stan Rogow (Gemini Division), Matthew Diamond (Alloy Media), Chris Henchy (Funny or Die), and Michael Yanover (CAA). Check it out if you get a chance -- could be very interesting.
Susan Ee
http://feraldream.com
Invision, a web video guide, launched its beta yesterday. They're at Techcrunch50 in San Francisco this week, strutting their stuff to VCs and technocrats. Their beta seems to be for channels only (YouTube, Hulu, Animal Planet, Yahoo, etc) rather than including one-offs like Dr. Horrible and Prom Queen. This should be an interesting space to watch, especially since I predict a tsunami of video content will hit the web within the next year.
Also at Techcrunch50, Joss Whedon (writer of Buffy, Serenity, and Dr. Horrible); Chris Henchy, (co-founder of Funny or Die and co-executive producer of "Entourage"); and Michael Yanover (head of business development at Creative Artists Agency) will be on a panel called "Hollywood Goes Silicon Valley."
Susan Ee
http://feraldream.com
Check this out. It's an interesting hybrid of novel and short films. From Publisher's Lunch list:
"Creator and executive producer of the CSI television franchise Anthony Zuiker's series of three suspense-thriller "digital novels" (every five chapters readers are given website codes to access two-minute films that bridge to the next five chapters) beginning with SQWEEGEL, about an former FBI forensic investigator who retired after his whole family was murdered but continues to work a variety of grim cases, to Brian Tart at Dutton, at auction, for publication beginning in fall 2009, by Dan Strone at Trident Media Group (world)."
Variety says "Zuiker will write a 60-page outline for each book, then supervise a novelist who'll turn it into a 100-chapter book. Zuiker will write and direct 20 "cyber-bridges," the two-minute video segments that supplement the pages."
Sounds awkward to me but kudos to them for trying something new. I'm guessing that if it was sold at auction, we're talking a six or seven figure advance. And the guy hasn't even written it yet! Must be nice to be famous...
Susan Ee
http://feraldream.com
PS - Variety says it's a 7-figure deal.
Stats on Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog (a very successful web series by Joss Whedon):
Length - about 40 minutes, broken into 3 pieces.
Budget - LA Times reports that it's "in the low six-figures." The Guardian UK reports that Whedon (who financed it) spent "a sum 'below six figures.'"
Viewers - reported to have had 200,000 hits per hour when it launched.
Number of crew - "in the dozens"
Set - Universal Studios backlot
Format - HD
Distribution strategy - free online for 1 week, then downloadable only on iTunes, now available on both iTunes and Hulu. DVD distribution in the works with singing commentaries.
Susan Ee
http://feraldream.com
Here's what Stacy Parks of Filmspecific has to say about Prom Queen, a successful webisode:
Take Vuguru for example, Michael Eisner's year and a half-old
production company set up expressly to produce web content.
They have a big hit on their hands with PROM QUEEN, a 90 second daily
soap averaging over 200,000 viewers a day. The show was recently
picked up for a traditional DVD distribution deal by a major
company willing to experiment with this new medium. They are
packaging 2 seasons worth of shows together, adding in a ton of
never-seen-before footage, cast interviews, vlogs, and other
extras - and introducing it to the market to see if customers
are willing to actually buy a DVD of something, that they can
essentially see for free on the web.But that's why all this 'extra' material is critical to the
equation....In any case, PROM QUEEN is broadcast on a few different web
outlets including it's own PromQueen.tv, You Tube, and My
Space among others -- but to date, My Space has been the
biggest outlet, and with the thousands upon thousands of
registered My Space friends PROM QUEEN has, advertisers are
chomping at the bit to get in on this -- and thus is born
a very big revenue stream for PROM QUEEN.
Interesting, eh? After the first 2 shows, Techcrunch said:
There was a three second pre-roll ad for the upcoming Hairspray movie, a short ad for Verizon Vcast and then a fifteen second post-roll ad for Hairspray again.
After the first season, Washington Post said:
Each episode? Just 90 seconds. ("When we were watching online content, we noticed that we started looking for something else after 90 seconds," explained show co-creator Chris Hampel.) The full season, in fact, is just two hours. Air date? Seven days a week, since on the Internet there are no programming schedules. Commercials? Let's just say the characters drink a lot of prominently placed POM Wonderful and Fiji Water for a reason.
The Post reported that the budget for the show was between $100k-$150k but I'm not sure if that's per episode or for a whole season. I'm guessing it's for the season. It's a whole lot of money if it's coming out of your piggy bank, but it's oh, so cheap compared to the overwhelming majority of production budgets. And it's being reported as profitable. Of course, you do have the Eisner brand behind it which engenders a whole lot of confidence with the advertisers...
Susan Ee
http://feraldream.com
The economy is putting the squeeze on Hollywood. Studios are having a harder time finding money for their slates. Filmmakers big and small are looking at creative financing, which translates to Dating Attempt 2.0 between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. It has yet to go as far as getting into bed together, or marriage (Silicon Valley marriages often last about as long as Hollywood marriages, so at least they have that in common). But there have been more attempts at getting together for coffee and dinner. The last one that sounded really good to me was a breakfast gathering of VCs and a major Hollywood agent. The notices only went out to a select few individuals, which would have guaranteed a small group. The only catch was that it was ungodly early in the morning. Remember my post on how I wouldn't get up for a tornado because it was 5:30 AM?
Anyway, the latest and most interesting Hollywood & Silicon Valley gathering is at the Churchill Club: Hollywood, YouToo? Finding the Money and Eyeballs in Web Video (A San Francisco Event, p.m.) It'll be a large event but it might be worth checking out.
Cheers,
Susan Ee
http://feraldream.com/
