Here is perhaps one of the most cleverly creepy trailers for a new documentary called “Room 237,” which examines the many intricacies that have sprung up about the horror movie classic, “The Shining.”

At the time it was released in 1980, the film started as more of a box office flop for director Stanley Kubrick. But, since then, it has become a cult phenom, and that is where “Room 237” starts the fun, with all the many theories — mostly of the conspiracy kind — about “The Shining.”

Gory fun, of course.

Enjoy (if you dare):

“Something Ventured: Risk, Reward, and the Original Venture Capitalists” is a documentary that celebrates — pretty much without a lot of criticism — the very first venture capitalists who were behind the tech giants launching companies like Apple, Intel, Cisco, Atari and Genentech.

Starting in January, “Something Ventured” is being aired on public television stations nationwide.

The film — which premiered at SXSW last year — focuses on the key VCs, including investor Arthur Rock, Kleiner Perkins’ Tom Perkins, Sequoia Capital’s Don Valentine and New Enterprise Associate’s Dick Kramlich. It’s full of great stories from them and others, such as remembering the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’s proclivity to not worry too much about showering.

And there are some tasty quotes, too:

Perkins: “I don’t know how to write a business plan. I can only tell you how we read them. We start at the back, and if the numbers are big, we look at the front to see what kind of business it is.”

Rock: “Steve Jobs is a national treasure. He is so visionary, and so bright. I had to fire him, though.”

Valentine: “I’m not interested in entrepreneurs who will do it our way. I’m not interested in entrepreneurs who think there’s a dress code. I’m interested in entrepreneurs who have a vision of doing something consequential –preferably that becomes big.”

And from Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, where Jobs once worked: “They (Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak) offered a third of Apple Computer for $50,000, and I said, ‘Gee, I don’t think so.’ I could have owned a third of Apple Computer for $50,000. Big mistake.”

Indeed.

Here’s the trailer.

It used to be easy — if you were paid to create it for either a movie theater or a TV network, it was professional and premium. And everything else was crap. Then along came the Internet and YouTube and upended the apple cart. Just as with music and magazines, suddenly anyone with a camera could upload whatever they wanted and (potentially) reach an audience.

In the early days of YouTube, very little could even charitably be called professional content. Cats riding skateboards, babbling babies and ladies sharing odd comestibles drove millions of views, but could hardly be called premium. In fact, the industry (and YouTube) called this stuff “User Generated Content” or UGC. But it didn’t take long for “professional video creators” — folks who’d actually received checks from media companies — to try their hand at original Web video. And it wasn’t just a hobby, either. Individuals and networks — including my own company, Revision3 — tried to turn a user-generated miasma into a professional, premium and profitable kingdom.

Unlike cats and babies, early efforts from some of the pioneering creators — including Shay Carl, iJustine and Phil DeFranco — developed new ways to talk to audiences and grow viewers. Over time, they layered traditional TV principles, including scheduling, repeating segments and good-looking video and audio, on top of the new media they were creating.

Then a little more than a year ago, YouTube upped the ante with its “channels” project, where it invested more than $100 million dollars in an effort to bring a variety of successful creators from traditional film and TV to their platform. At the same time, it began encouraging traditional rights-holders to upload their existing shows and movies for sale or rent.

So, today we have a variety of content on YouTube: Pre-existing material from traditional, linear TV and film production companies and networks. New properties, some narrative, some non-fiction, but produced by those with a background, or training, in traditional media. New episodic content that has little in common with traditional models. Music videos from established stars and everyone else with an instrument and a camera. And, of course, a steady stream of one-off videos of cats, babies and more.

So, what’s professional? What’s premium? Before I answer that, let’s agree on what makes someone a professional video creator. Fundamentally, a professional video creator is someone who is looking to make money from their endeavors, rather than simply doing it for fun. If you’re in it for profit, and someone’s written you a check for it, then you’re a pro. It works for the NCAA, and it works for me.

What about professional video? First, I think it’s created by a “professional” as defined above, but it’s more than that. I think professional video is defined by the following characteristics:

• Your video product is more than just a one-off (unless you’re making music videos, but that’s a different ball of corn)
• You’re releasing related, or episodic, videos on a set schedule — i. e. daily, weekly, monthly — not just tossing something out when you feel like it
• You’ve built up an audience of subscribers who want to watch what you do
• You’re actually making money from your efforts

That’s it. Note that I’ve made no distinctions about quality of production, quality of content, format or background and training of the creators. The key elements to me are whether you can create something repeatedly on a schedule, and whether you can build a community, or audience, of people who will come back and watch regularly. This definition excludes things like “David at the Dentist” and “Charlie Bit My Finger” — although even these can be turned into repeatable shows. But it includes Hank and John Green talking to each other in the Vlog Brothers, all the “Let’s Play” practitioners who have audience and repeatability, vloggers, makeup tips and more.

So that’s professional video. What’s premium? From where I sit, it’s the same thing. If you’re making something people want to watch, you’re getting paid for it, you’re releasing on a schedule, and your audio and video are reasonably high-quality, then it’s premium, too. The fact that you’re getting paid means that you’re getting a premium for your video efforts (as long as that premium is greater than zero).

Web video is a new medium. There are hundreds of thousands of creators getting checks from YouTube every month. Those who have built passionate audiences and can create on a schedule are professionals, making premium content. And advertisers who ignore this unique connection to their fans are missing out on a powerful — and professional — place to introduce brands to a passionate audience.

Former Yahoo exec Ross Levinsohn, who has laid pretty low since he left there earlier this year, will be joining the board of the Venice, Calif.-based video start-up, Zefr.

“Ross is a perfect intersection of everything we are in media and technology,” said Zefr co-founder Zach James. “He understands both sides natively, and we need that kind of expertise.”

Indeed — the company raised $18.5 million in additional funding this summer to turbocharge its offerings.

At the time, Zefr changed its name from Movieclips, and added sports, television and music videos to its film efforts. Zefr launched in 2009 as a niche video catalog site, focusing on helping movie studios collect and monetize fan and professional postings on YouTube, and offering advertisers a large network of premium movie clips.

The company said then that it had 600 million monthly views, 25,000 movie clips, and three billion total lifetime views on YouTube. It is about to celebrate one billion monthly views.

“Zefr has all the ingredients for success — dynamic, inspiring management, the ability to marry technology and content, and a business model that can scale,” said Levinsohn. “I’m thrilled to be part of the team.”

Jackson has been making a lot of very interesting reports about the making of the tech-laden film, which is being rushed to completion right now. Jackson said he and his crew there will be at work on the CGI and other tech elements until just before it is shown.

For example, “The Hobbit” will be the first shown in 3-D at a high frame rate of 48 frames per second, which is a very big deal and is supposed to depict the characters more realistically.

Enjoy:

Yahoo and Facebook are not currently in talks about forming a search alliance or building a search engine together, according to my sources, who scoffed about such a deal reported in a thinner-than-tissue-paper post by the Telegraph earlier today.

In addition, Yahoo is not anywhere near ending its search partnership with Microsoft, although new CEO Marissa Mayer has been in touch with the software giant about improving performance that has been less than lackluster over the course of its history so far.

Despite this, it would be nearly impossible for Yahoo to extricate itself from the long-term contract easily — though there are certain, but very difficult, outs. But sources tell me Microsoft would fight any attempt to end it earlier.

Thus, while Yahoo and Facebook have had a very good relationship of late, after the pair stopped warring over patents, and have also had success with its various sharing initiatives, a substantive search collaboration is not now in the mix.

Could the pair do more in terms of sharing among its users? Sure! Could they more tightly integrate services? Yep! Could they do something jointly related to advertising? Why not! But will they build a search engine together? Not likely.

Indeed, I am not even sure what such a thing means, since it would now be nearly impossible to execute, given Yahoo has outsourced its core search technology long ago to Microsoft and has been largely focused on improving search experience since then.

Of course, it’s no secret that Facebook is likely to enter the search arena in a more substantive manner in the future — CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has said so publicly — because people expect a better experience and users have been asking for years for improvements.

So watch that space, for certain, as it could also be very lucrative for the company and perhaps give search leader Google a bit more of a race.

But the social networking site is likely to work on its own in such an effort — as well as approach the space in much different ways. Hooking up with Yahoo would bring it almost nothing it might need to make it a success.

There are some interesting what-ifs to ponder with the idea of Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo forming some kind of Avengers-style effort to battle Google, especially if it had a mobile element. But that’s the movie version at this moment.

(Speaking of movies, I am sorry it took me so long to get to this, but I was seeing the final “Twilight” with some All Things Digital staffers. I can report that the sparkly vampires of the film are also not in search alliance talks with Facebook.)

One unusual phrase in the Telegraph article did catch my eye though, which noted that “board members expect the talks to lead to much more substantial collaboration based around Web-based search.”

Such a Facebook search tie-up rumor would certainly do wonders for a Yahoo stock pop tomorrow for all the hedge funds now piling into the Silicon Valley Internet giant, would that it were so.

But it’s not.

Under the deal, Kabam will develop and operate The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth for mobile, and The Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age for the Web. The games are expected to come out this fall, ahead of the first movie — “An Unexpected Journey” — on Dec. 14.

The deal is a big win for Kabam, which has been working hard over the past year to diversify beyond the Facebook platform. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is co-publishing the two titles.

In an interview, Kevin Chou, Kabam’s CEO, emphasized that this is not a traditional licensing deal, where Kabam agrees to pay a huge upfront fee for the games’ rights and then bears all of the risk. Likewise, he said the games aren’t solely a marketing push to promote the movies.

“We are aligned, in terms of how we are building and operating the games,” Chou said. “We aren’t in the business of getting paid $1 million to $2 million to do a marketing promo for a movie. Last year, we did $100 million in revenue, and this year we are growing well over 50 percent. … We are thinking about how do we entertain fans between the movie releases, and tie in the free-to-play game context with massive audiences.”

Chou declined to say which platforms the games will be launching on, but if Kabam’s recent moves are any guide, it could easily play across a number of devices. Last year at this time, 100 percent of Kabam’s revenue was coming from Facebook. Today, 70 percent of its revenue is from other platforms, such as iOS, Android, and distribution services on the PC, like Steam and Kongregate. Both games will be monetized through virtual goods.

Kabam is known for creating “mid-core” games, meaning that they require more involvement by the players than many social games. Chou said that its style is in line with the movies, which are dark and gritty. The mobile game will have an empire-building component seen in previous Kabam games, and the Web game will have real-time combat sequences, he said.

This is not Kabam’s first licensing deal. It worked previously on The Godfather: Five Families, a big-budget social game for Facebook. While it may not have gone as well as some may have hoped — and was possibly hurt by the fact that “The Godfather” series had no new films coming out — it may have helped establish Kabam’s ability to work content creators. In the case of “The Godfather,” it was Paramount Digital Entertainment.

Free is probably the right call for the games, even if Tolkien fans are willing to flock to theaters and pay to watch the movie on the big screen. For context, eight months after Electronic Arts released the ambitious multiplayer game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, it made it free to anyone who wanted to play.

And one of the top director candidates is well-regarded Hollywood exec Peter Chernin, said several sources.

He is an obvious choice, having been a top exec at News Corp. for many years. Since he left in mid-2009, Chernin has forged a successful film and television career, producing such hits as “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and “New Girl.”

But, unlike many media execs, he has also focused on garnering much deeper digital experience.

Chernin was key to the formation of the Hulu premium online service, for example, and is also a board member of the Pandora streaming music service. He has also been making digital and media investments in Asia.

(And, interestingly, although apropos of nothing, Chernin’s former boss, Rupert Murdoch, has become an avid tweeter, too.)

Sources said Chernin has not decided if he even wants such a board seat, and Twitter management is still only in the early stages of its board effort, presumably to replace Flipboard’s Mike McCue.

The entrepreneur left the board earlier this year, after it was clear that his social media app and Twitter were on a collision course (or an acquisition one, depending how you looked at it).

But the addition of a media-savvy director — or even two — also makes sense in the context of the past year of Twitter’s evolution.

The brainchild of Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, Twitter first began as a microblogging social network.

While it did attract a lot of attention due to its celebrity tweeters — such as actor Ashton Kutcher and famebot Kim Kardashian — the management and board of Twitter is largely tech-centric in experience.

But, more recently, the service has taken its shape as a consumption-based media company, where some 40 percent of its user base read and consume content rather than create it. That is to say, they watch, but they don’t tweet.

Such a strategic direction is a natural extension for bringing in more advertising spending from outside partners, especially big media companies that have both the eyeballs and dollars that the company is hoping to attract.

Twitter is now commonly used throughout the media space in a variety of roles, from branding to audience-gauging, and also sometimes even as a plot device.

(That said, you won’t catch CEO Dick Costolo outright admitting Twitter’s media-company status; he still wants the Silicon Valley cred of being valued as a technology giant first.)

A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on any effort to bring in new directors; Chernin has not yet responded to a query for comment.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Luis Lavin rejected the emergency injunction from Cindy Lee Garcia, an actress who appeared in the low-budget anti-Muslim film, “Innocence of Muslims.” The denial was in part due to the fact that Garcia was unable to serve a copy of the lawsuit to Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the man who reportedly organized the production of the film.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The high-profile duo aren’t the first to visit Google+, but the company is taking their arrival very seriously. The video teasing their chat prominently features Google Play branding, and video of the Hangout will be broadcast live on ABC’s Times Square Jumbotron (ugh, fine, it’s technically called the “Supersign”). That’s a first for any of the site’s publicly watchable “Hangouts On Air.”

Google declined to disclose the details of the partnership between themselves and Disney (owner of “Lincoln” distributor Touchstone Pictures), but said the Hangout was an “afterthought” to the original plan of just debuting the first trailer on YouTube.

(Update: the Google spokesperson interviewed for this story says the word “afterthought” was incorrect, noting that “part of the appeal of exclusively premiering the trailer on Google Play, was the ability to also promote the trailer in a hangout”).

Layering on top of the seeming identity crisis: The video chat isn’t exactly of the people, by the people, for the people. It will be moderated by Google’s Steve Grove, and only three participants will be able to ask questions of Spielberg and Gordon-Levitt — and they have to have uploaded their own videos about “Lincoln” to YouTube and shared the event listing with their Google+ circles.

Still, it will be interesting to see if and how the association with one of the most-anticipated movies of the year will affect Google+’s image. Even without A-list celebrities on board, Hangouts are a nifty (but not so popular) distinguishing feature of the search leader’s social network.

Here’s a look at the aforementioned teaser video for the full trailer (and the Hangout), which will debut at 4 pm PT:

According to sources close to the situation, News Corp.’s Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller will soon be leaving the media giant.

It seems to be a cordial, although perhaps inevitable, parting — sources said Miller will remain an adviser to chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, as well as COO Chase Carey and deputy COO James Murdoch, for a year after his departure in late September.

Update: News Corp. confirmed the departure in a press release, which is embedded below.

His leaving brings into focus the fate of News Corp.’s overall digital strategy in an upcoming new structure. Miller was hired in 2009 to turbocharge the company’s long-troubled digital assets.

But I had noted in an article in July that the well-known Internet exec was not likely to continue at News Corp. in the wake of a complex transaction that will ultimately break the company apart into two separate entities — an entertainment company and a publishing one.

That’s a very different situation from when Miller was hired by the media giant to lead its tech and online initiatives and make digital a priority across its many divisions.

Not for lack of trying or access to powerful News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch — it has been a mixed bag for Miller in his tenure.

That’s due in no small part to a problem faced by many execs like Miller: The difficulty of successfully pushing digital initiatives inside a large traditional media organization.

His job has encompassed everything from a failed effort to revive its once mighty Myspace service to selling it and other properties off to working to improve its Hulu partnership, where he serves on the board.

It is not clear who will replace Miller as one of the News Corp. directors at the complexly-owned premium video service, which had been for sale and then not recently.

One of the brighter Miller accomplishments for News Corp. has been forging decidedly better relationships with key Internet companies, both large and small, as well as with venture investors in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

That was most pronounced and visible between Apple and News Corp., which struck a number of deals to work together, some of which worked and some that had much less success.

Miller has also been active in China, working on several digital investment opportunities for News Corp. there. That included a recent $70 million investment in Bona Film Group.

He was key to a recent $45 million investment by the company and others in the company that sells the Roku video streaming device.

He also worked on various New Corp. efforts on creating channels on Google’s YouTube, including WIGS, a drama series. The jury is still out on these kinds of creative endeavors, of course, especially to a company with much more lucrative traditional film and television assets.

There was a possibility that, in his leaving, Miller might form a separate investment fund to focus on digital publishing and media, funded by News Corp. or even by the Murdoch family, who control the company.

But that has appeared not to have worked out, said sources.

Before he came to News Corp., Miller ran an investment fund with former Yahoo exec Ross Levinsohn called Fuse Capital. He also was chairman and CEO of AOL under its Time Warner ownership and was a top exec at IAC/InterActiveCorp.

Miller has remained an active angel investor, funding a range of start-ups such as Maker Studios, Voxer, Science, Solavei, Personal.com, as well many as others.

He is also chairman of OpenX and serves on the boards of Shutterstock and TripAdvisor.

Clearly, this is a world Miller will return to easily and it’s likely he’ll be starting something sooner than later. (Maybe bringing the band back together with Levinsohn?)

JonathanMillerAug23.2012

(Full disclosure: This Web site is owned by Dow Jones, which is owned — in turn — by News Corp.)

Hollywood super-writer Aaron Sorkin has already gotten his new show on the struggles of creating a new television news show in the Internet age renewed for another season.

The successful Sorkin made light of the struggles to attract a big audience for the HBO program in a recent onstage interview at the 10th D: All Things Digital conference.

Not so hard, as it turns out for the voluble scribe, whose “The Newsroom” got 2.1 million viewers in its opening two weeks ago, which is just behind HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” and “Game of Thrones.”

Sorkin did manage to attract some controversy recently when he said in a tense interview with Sarah Nicole Pickett of Canada’s Globe and Mail:

“Listen here, Internet girl. It wouldn’t kill you to watch a film or pick up a newspaper once in a while.”

The fab line did result in an even funnier Tumblr on the kerfuffle.

Here’s the full video of Sorkin’s interview with Walt Mossberg at D10, as well as another very funny recent viral video, titled “Sorkinisms,” in which the writer uses his best lines over and over, compiled from a variety of his shows.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120704/hey-internet-girl-aaron-sorkins-tv-news-2-0-show-gets-a-second-season-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120623/viral-video-bella-is-a-really-mean-sparkly-vampire/ http://allthingsd.com/20120623/viral-video-bella-is-a-really-mean-sparkly-vampire/#comments Sat, 23 Jun 2012 20:11:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=223581

So unexpected that the wet noodle who has been Bella throughout the “Twilight” movie series should suddenly show some gumption in the finale film that is coming in November.

But that seems to be the case from this second, action-packed trailer, in which she swoops around and talks about being alive more than ever.

Now that Bella’s undead, of course, and has red eyes and a rapidly growing kid to defend. Message from the messagey author of the books: Motherhood makes you a mama grizzly.

(Edward is just as languidly tiresome as ever, though.)

Also, the sullen actress who has long played Bella, Kristen Stewart, actually displays more than one glum affect and even — horrors — smiles with charm.

Scary!

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120623/viral-video-bella-is-a-really-mean-sparkly-vampire/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120530/otoy-takes-movie-production-to-the-cloud/ http://allthingsd.com/20120530/otoy-takes-movie-production-to-the-cloud/#comments Wed, 30 May 2012 18:37:58 +0000 Bonnie Cha http://allthingsd.com/?p=213753 If you have dreams of creating the next Hollywood blockbuster but don’t have the budget of a big movie studio, a company called Otoy wants to help.

At the D10 conference today, the Los Angeles-based software provider demoed its cloud-based 3-D rendering service called Octane Render, which aims to bring cinema rendering power to any laptop or tablet, at a fraction of the cost.

“What we’re offering lets you render at a higher quality than ILM [Industrial Light & Magic] and other high-end visual effects studios,” said Jules Urbach, co-founder and CEO of Otoy.

Rendering is the process of creating photo-realistic images, such as buildings and animated characters, on a computer, using effects like lighting, shadows, texture — and then bringing that to film. The process can take a lot of time and power, not to mention money, so if you don’t work for a movie studio, creating the next “Transformers” or “The Avengers” can be challenging.

That’s where Octane Render comes in. The service allows you to use your own computer or tablet to work on rendering, but moves the processor-intensive task to its servers, which are equipped with powerful graphic chips. To demonstrate this, Otoy showed at D10 how it created “Transformers” characters for a TV commercial, using just an iPad and Octane Render.

Another advantage of Octane Render is that you will be able to see any modifications you make in real time, whereas the traditional rendering process can take hours.

“Not only is our software cheaper and more efficient, it gives filmmakers more creativity, because you’re able to see things instantaneously,” said Alissa Grainger, co-founder and president of Otoy. “So if an artist doesn’t like the lighting or material, you can change it and get instantaneous feedback.”

Octane Render has been in development for three years, and in beta, or testing mode, for the past 18 months, with about 10,000 users. Otoy will open up the service to everyone later this summer; the company did not reveal pricing at this time. It did say, however, the cost would be “minimal.”

Otoy was founded in 2008 by Urbach, Grainger and Malcolm Taylor. In addition to Octane Render, the company offers a game-streaming service that competes with OnLive and Gaikai. Otoy investors include George Gilder, technology writer and host of the Gilder Telecosm Forum, and Taylor Frigon Capital Partners, LP.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120530/otoy-takes-movie-production-to-the-cloud/feed/ 5 http://allthingsd.com/20120508/viral-video-the-dictator-kills/ http://allthingsd.com/20120508/viral-video-the-dictator-kills/#comments Tue, 08 May 2012 07:58:20 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=205137

Here is the red-band trailer from the upcoming movie “The Dictator,” which stars Sacha Baron Cohen.

Simply put: It looks hysterical, even if all the jokes are in this video.

The troublemaking Cohen also appeared on “Saturday Night Live” last weekend, torturing famed film director Martin Scorsese.

It killed.

Enjoy both:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120508/viral-video-the-dictator-kills/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120423/you-can-handle-the-truth-aaron-sorkin-to-appear-onstage-at-d10/ http://allthingsd.com/20120423/you-can-handle-the-truth-aaron-sorkin-to-appear-onstage-at-d10/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:30:44 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=198654

Add another speaker to the stellar list for the 10th D: All Things Digital conference, which is taking place in a little more than a month: Aaron Sorkin.

For those who have followed the long and award-filled career of the well-known playwright and Hollywood writer, it’s an astonishing litany of success — from “A Few Good Men” to “The West Wing” to “Moneyball” — filled with more unusually clever lines than anyone has ever penned.

But, most famously for tech, Sorkin also wrote the screenplay (and also won an Academy Award) for “The Social Network,” about the rise of Facebook and its unusual co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

The film caused a lot of controversy in Silicon Valley over its depiction of Zuckerberg as an evil genius of sorts, of course, but few can argue that it was not a corker of a movie.

We are excited to talk to Sorkin about that experience, as well as his take on the state of entertainment in the digital age. He’s about to debut a new HBO show in June called “The Newsroom,” set behind the scenes at a cable news show. It deals with the massive changes roiling through the media industry and it begins, natch, with a viral video.

Sorkin is also set to make his Broadway debut as a librettist for the upcoming musical “Houdini.” And he’s also working on another new movie, based on a book about the downfall of Sen. John Edwards, which he’ll adapt, produce and direct.

Sorkin will be joined at D10 — which will be held in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., just south of Los Angeles, at the end of May — by a litany of major players in tech and media, including: Apple CEO Tim Cook, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz and many more.

And we still have more speakers to come, but until then, here’s the famous line from “The Social Network” — something about a billion dollars:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120423/you-can-handle-the-truth-aaron-sorkin-to-appear-onstage-at-d10/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120321/online-audiences-are-famished-for-the-hunger-games-though-vampires-still-rule/ http://allthingsd.com/20120321/online-audiences-are-famished-for-the-hunger-games-though-vampires-still-rule/#comments Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:25:36 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=188161 As of yesterday morning, the movie version of the popular teen novel “The Hunger Games,” which comes out Friday, accounted for 92 percent of total ticket sales on Fandango. That includes 1,200 showtimes sold-out on the online ticketing service, which recently signed various deals with AMC Theatres, Facebook and, earlier this week, Yahoo Movies. Still, the kids-fight-to-the-death film has not yet topped the online advance sales for the three “Twilight” movies or the last two in the “Harry Potter” franchise.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120321/online-audiences-are-famished-for-the-hunger-games-though-vampires-still-rule/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120321/viral-video-getty-images-mishmash-2012-competition-winner/ http://allthingsd.com/20120321/viral-video-getty-images-mishmash-2012-competition-winner/#comments Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:16:49 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=188665

And the winner is … Jason Harper for “In this Shop.”

The winner, that is, of Getty Images’ innovative Mishmash creative challenge, in which anyone can submit a film from one to three minutes long, as long as it was created using Getty Images’ video, music and imagery content.

Harper’s video, which depicts a classic city barbershop, won the Global Grand Prix title, out of 300 entries worldwide. Winners were also selected for three other global regions.

Here is Harper’s winning video, set to a poem by Mark Anthony Thomas, which he called “an ode to a place I grew up.”

Lovely:

And here’s the official press release listing the other winners:

Getty Images announces the winners of 2012 Mishmash challenge

London, UK — 21 March, 2012: Getty Images has today announced the winners of its annual Mishmash creative challenge. The competition, which launched in January, received 300 entries from around the world, with winners being divided between three regions: EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), the Americas and Asia Pacific, with one global overall winner also selected.

Jason Harper’s entry, In This Shop, which explores the place of a local business in modern day America, was awarded the Global Grand Prix title, which chairman of the jury and R/GA, Chief Creative Officer, Nick Law described as “beautifully modulated, intimate and simple.” Other winners include:

Global Grand Prix and Americas: Jason Harper from the US for In This Shop
APAC: Marcia Hawira from New Zealand for Natalia
EMEA: Blake Dixon from the United Kingdom for The Newton N. Minow Experience
Public vote prize: Bartolome Barrero from Spain for Mother Nature

Each of the winning entries cleverly blurred the lines between imagery and video to create works which both impressed and challenged the judges with their creativity, story-telling techniques, slick editing and innovative subject matter.

Andrew Saunders, Senior Vice President, Creative Content, Getty Images said: “Once again we have had an overwhelmingly positive response to Mishmash, which never fails to produce work that both inspires and surprises us. The high calibre of films really showcases our creative and engaging content and we feel that the shortlisted entries demonstrate the evolution of video and media as a growing and highly engaging communication platform. A huge congratulations to all of our winners.”

Getty Images received over 300 submissions from creatives in over 50 countries — an increase of 37 per cent compared with the 2010 competition.

New for 2012, Mishmash entrants could choose to enter one of three categories: short story, music video or video art. Each film, which needed to be between one and three minutes long, was created using Getty Images video, music and imagery content.

The competition, which ran for two months, was judged by 29 of the world’s leading music, technology and film production professionals and was chaired by R/GA’s, Global Chief Creative Officer, Nick Law. Other judges included:

· Ignacio Oreamuno, President, I have an idea
· Nate Lanxon, Online Editor, Wired
· Leading Bollywood film producer Aashish Singh from Yash Raj Films

For more information on the Mishmash competition, or to view the award-winning entries, visit www.gettyimages.com/mishmash

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120321/viral-video-getty-images-mishmash-2012-competition-winner/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120313/viral-video-bella-is-now-a-sparkly-vampire/ http://allthingsd.com/20120313/viral-video-bella-is-now-a-sparkly-vampire/#comments Tue, 13 Mar 2012 07:26:17 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=185323

We Twihards saw it coming at the end of the last installment of the “Twilight” movie franchise, as the main character, Bella, finally got to be a sparkly vampire.

Actually, she seems to have become a rather pasty white one, with blood-red lipstick — which is also the look being sported by her long-tortured paramour, Edward, in this new clip from the second “Breaking Dawn” film.

The video ran in an exclusive deal with Target in its retail stores, connected to the DVD release for the first part of the movie. Guess what? Someone had a smartphone and caught the whole thing.

Kids today! Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120313/viral-video-bella-is-now-a-sparkly-vampire/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120302/hbo-digital-head-alison-moore-talks-about-hbo-go-and-more-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120302/hbo-digital-head-alison-moore-talks-about-hbo-go-and-more-video/#comments Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:26:23 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=179928

Earlier this week, HBO co-Presidents Eric Kessler and Richard Plepler hosted a cocktail party in San Francisco, along with a screening of HBO’s latest original film, “Game Change.”

The idea of the event was to get the Time Warner-owned premium cable channel some much-needed cred among the tech press in Silicon Valley, as well as to talk up its slick and well-done streaming service, HBO Go.

Kessler said that HBO would soon be adding Microsoft’s Xbox 360 to the many connected devices to which HBO Go now distributes the channel’s content. So far, the HBO Go app has been downloaded six million times and is available via cable operators.

Alison Moore, SVP of digital platforms at HBO, talked about that and more in this video interview I did here:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120302/hbo-digital-head-alison-moore-talks-about-hbo-go-and-more-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120302/viral-video-ted-2023-according-to-prometheus/ http://allthingsd.com/20120302/viral-video-ted-2023-according-to-prometheus/#comments Fri, 02 Mar 2012 08:44:42 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=179919 Here’s a clever spoof video that was prepared for the TED conference, ending today in Long Beach, Calif.

It’s for the upcoming movie by Ridley Scott, “Prometheus,” and pretends its main character (played by Guy Pearce) is a speaker at the event, which is a favorite of Silicon Valley players.

On a fake Web site depicting the corporation around which the film revolves, it notes of the appearance: “Considered a seminal moment in the career of our founder Peter Weyland, this 2023 TED Talk launched Weyland Corp into the international spotlight.”

Clever:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120302/viral-video-ted-2023-according-to-prometheus/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120222/viral-video-bond-vlog-james-bond-vlog/ http://allthingsd.com/20120222/viral-video-bond-vlog-james-bond-vlog/#comments Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:00:53 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=176881

Two makes a trend, as far as I am concerned, so here is movie director Sam Mendes — following in the digital footsteps of “The Hobbit” helmer Peter Jackson — making a video blog for the latest James Bond film, “Skyfall.”

It is a much shorter video, but presumably there will be more.

I am a giant Bond fan, so I will certainly be watching:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120222/viral-video-bond-vlog-james-bond-vlog/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120130/silence-of-the-lambs-the-missing-voice-of-authors-in-the-sopa-debate/ http://allthingsd.com/20120130/silence-of-the-lambs-the-missing-voice-of-authors-in-the-sopa-debate/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:26:32 +0000 Lisa Alter http://allthingsd.com/?p=168856 The recent media frenzy surrounding the Stop Online Piracy Act is perhaps most notable for the voice that is absent in the mainstream media debate: The voice of the individual creator of intellectual property. Instead, the battle lines have been drawn between competing corporate interests — that of the entertainment industry companies and trade organizations versus that of the Internet service providers. Overriding all is the crusade mounted by the self-proclaimed protectors of the “public” interest, who equate “free speech” with “free access,” based on the misguided notion that the public has an ownership in original works of authorship that surpasses the rights of the creator him- or herself.

The position of the anti-SOPA activists is antithetical to the principle of protection — for authors, that is — mandated in the Constitution of the United States. Our nation’s founders recognized that furthering the rights of creators is in the national interest, to “promote the progress of science and useful arts” by “securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” Over the centuries, copyright protection has been codified in an expanding body of federal law in an attempt to implement the protection outlined in the Constitution.

The SOPA debate is emblematic of the growing tension between the copyright creator — the authors, composers, lyricists and artists who have contributed so much to the socio-economic fabric of American life — and the “interests” of the public in having free access to the works of others. However, the creator/public dichotomy is a false paradigm. What is truly at stake are the competing interests of the creators and the corporations who have acquired and are exploiting their works.

It is the rare creator who has the luxury to create simply for the sake of creating. As history has shown (every Renaissance artist worth his canvas had a patron), in order for creators to enjoy the benefits of their creations, it is necessary for them to cross over into the world of commerce, and to seek the patronage of publishers, record labels, and film and television producers. Sadly, the relationship between creator and corporate sponsor is seldom equal, as evidenced by the scores of documents executed by authors, songwriters and other creators, granting the rights in their works to corporate entities in perpetuity, often in exchange for modest compensation.

Congress attempted to include in the Copyright Act a series of provisions to give the creator (or the heirs of a deceased creator) the opportunity to terminate even perpetual grants of copyright, and “recapture” rights to their works in the U.S. These provisions, known as the “termination provisions,” were first introduced as part of the Copyright Act of 1976, and later modified as part of the Sonny Bono Copyright Act of 1998.

The intent of Congress in enacting the termination provisions was clear: To give creators, or their heirs, the opportunity to escape inequitable deals, or simply to revise the terms of their deals in order to share proportionately in the success of their creations. And, indeed, the opportunity to recapture rights is a potentially valuable asset for creators and their statutory successors. Yet, outside the music industry, the termination right is significantly underutilized, while even songwriters and recording artists are often thwarted in their attempts to recapture rights in a process made unduly complicated in response to pressure from corporate lobbyists.

Like the termination provisions, the real value of SOPA and other copyright enforcement legislation is its role in safeguarding the interests of the intended beneficiaries of copyright protection. Whether or not SOPA is the most effective means of curbing piracy in the online arena is a matter that should be thoroughly examined. However, the SOPA debate should not be commandeered as a vehicle for furthering the position of those who seek to write authors out of the copyright law and the Constitution.

Lisa A. Alter is a partner in the firm of Alter & Kendrick, LLP, in New York City. Her practice is focused primarily in the area of copyright law, with a particular emphasis on domestic and international music copyright issues. Ms. Alter has lectured frequently at law schools and professional meetings on copyright matters, and has represented clients on legislative matters impacting their copyright interests. She is the author of “Protecting Your Musical Copyrights,” which has recently been released in its second edition.

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