Friday 15 April 2011
Tuesday 12 April 2011
Finance and The King's Speech
And the Oscar goes to....a royal return for film financing fund
Harriet Agnew
01 Mar 2011
The King’s Speech, the Oscar-winning period drama being dubbed the most successful independent British film ever, almost did not get made at all. A host of high-profile production houses turned down the opportunity to back the project, but their loss has become one London investment boutique’s gain.
With the likes of Film 4 and BBC Films opting not to throw any money at the film, London-based Prescience Film Finance stepped in to provide two thirds of the film’s £9m budget. The investment was made using the firm’s £25m Aegis Film Fund.
The King’s Speech, which stars Colin Firth as George VI, has already grossed $245m worldwide and James Swarbrick, commercial director at Prescience, believes that cinema takings will hit $330m. He added that DVD revenues are normally about the same.
The film scooped a host of prizes at the 83rd Academy Awards in Los Angeles over the weekend, including the awards for Best Film and Best Director, while Firth took home the Best Actor gong for his portrayal of the stammering monarch.
Aegis began funding the film in November 2009. Swarbrick said: “We act like a media bank, raising finance for independent films.”
Aegis’s model is to securitise an up-front loan to a film producer against guaranteed future revenue streams, such as tax credits and distribution sales, which are payable once the film is completed.
For The King’s Speech, the fund lent money against the UK tax credit at a rate of 15%, against pre-sales contracts at 15%, and at a rate of 18-20% against distribution in territories that hadn’t been pre-sold.
Equity film financing is notoriously risky - according to data from the UK Film Council, only 35 of the 333 UK films released internationally between 2003 and 2006 made a profit for investors.
But Swarbrick said the Aegis fund is structured so that its returns are not dependent upon the box office success of any individual film. He said: “We make all of our returns from interest and fees charged from the loans.”
Nonetheless, the fund will share in the King’s Speech’s success because the terms of its loan entitle it to a share of the film's net profits - something Swarbrick said was “an unexpected bonus”.
He said: “A film like the King’s Speech happens all too rarely. It wasn’t immediately a slam dunk but once we saw what a good job the producers and directors and Colin and Helena did, we saw we were onto something special.”
Once the entire budget has been recouped, the profits are divided up, with half shared between the producers, directors and actors, and the remainder shared between the film’s financiers.
The Aegis fund launched in March 2009 and returned 13.8% after fees in its first year. Swarbrick said that its second year is expected to post similar returns, not including the profit share in the King’s Speech that Swarbrick estimates will add another 10% to the fund’s performance.
While the overwhelming response to the King’s Speech shows that there is an audience for low budget, beautifully-crafted films, funding for these types of ventures is still scarce.
Firth used his acceptance speech as an opportunity to criticize the UK Government’s “short-sighted decision” to axe the UK Film Council, the body which distributes national lottery money to film-makers and which gave a crucial £1m in early funding for The King’s Speech.
Bank lending has dried up and in a sign of further retrenchment, most of the large studios have closed down their “indie" divisions: Paramount shut down Paramount Vantage; Warner Bros closed Warner Independent and Picturehouse; and Disney folded Miramax.
On top of reduced funding, film makers must adapt to a new paradigm. The habits of consumers are changing dramatically DVD revenues are declining. Premila Hoon, previously global head of media and entertainment structured finance at Société Générale, and now co-founder of Entertainment Capital Advisors, a film advisory boutique, said: “The biggest risk for film makers is the rapidly changing landscape. We don’t know how consumers will consume film in the future. Digital distribution is where it’s at but how does one compete with free? To use a well-worn phrase, analogue dollars are likely to be substituted by digital cents.”
Hoon added that the film market is polarised, with franchise blockbuster films made by big studios at one end, and at the other, a small but flourishing market for small, well-crafted films such as the King’s Speech, while “everything in the middle is suffering terribly”.
However, she added that this meant it was a potentially exciting time to get involved in film financing: “It takes a bit of courage because you’ve got to try and work out how the market is going to evolve. But the established order is being shaken up, so now is the time to be in the business.”
Technological Convergence
Technological convergence is the trend of technologies to merge into new technologies that bring together a myriad of media. While historically, technology handled one medium or accomplished one or two tasks, through technological convergence, devices are now able to present and interact with a wide array of media.
In the past, for example, each entertainment medium had to be played on a specific device. Video was played on a television by using a video player of some sort, music was played on a tape deck or compact disc player, radio was played on an AM/FM tuner, and video games were played through a console of some sort. Similarly, different communication media used their own technologies. Voice conversation was carried on using a telephone, video communication briefly used high-end video phones, facsimile copies used fax machines, and e-mail used a computer.
Technological convergence in the last few years has resulted in devices that not only interact with the media they are primarily designed to handle, but also with a number of other formats. For example, the XBox video game console has as its primary purpose the playing of console games, but it is also able to play back video and music and to connect to the Internet. Similarly, most modern DVD players are capable not only of playing DVDs, but also of playing music CDs, displaying photos from photo CDs, playing encoded video in formats such as DIVX or VCD, and playing DVD music.
Technological convergence also leads to devices that are designed specifically to replace a number of different devices. The Apple iPod, for example, while originally conceived of as a portable music player, is now touted equally as a portable video player, photo album, and radio tuner. Cell phones, as well, have moved far beyond their beginnings as simple voice communication devices and now offer the functionality of personal music players, digital cameras, and text messenger systems as well.
Digital Media Distribution - Microsoft
Digital Media Distribution Opportunities
for the Film Industry
Technology advancements such as those in Windows Media 9 Series are enabling new distribution opportunities for the film industry including online, on CDs and DVDs and in theaters.
Growing Options for Viewing Films
The PC as an entertainment hub is fast becoming a reality with increased processing power combined with a fast broadband connection, connectivity to a variety of displays, and increases in the compression/decompression of high-end audio and video.
These new capabilities open up an opportunity and a challenge to film distributors: how to target this new digital entertainment gateway with digital movies and video but not lose control of the content in the process. Already today some estimates say there are as many as 500,000 digital movies being exchanged illegally over the web. How can technology help to bridge the gap between what consumers want (find, acquire, playback and share movies online) and what the film industry wants (secure content, business models that work, a great consumer experience)?
Advancements in digital media technology are opening up new distribution opportunities for the film industry. In order to take advantage of these new opportunities the film industry requires the ability to secure valuable assets, deliver them to customers and ensure a high quality playback experience on par with other playback options such as watching a DVD in a home theater or a pay-per-view movie on cable. Technology such as Windows Media 9 Series is being developed to meet those requirements and open up new distribution options.
This whitepaper discusses key features in Windows Media and how they are enabling three distribution channels for the film industry: the Internet, CDs and DVDs, and digital media enabled theaters.
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Internet Distribution
The advancements in Internet digital media distribution have happened so quickly. The first generation of streaming came online around 1994 with the first upsurge in Internet usage. This experience was audio only and bad quality audio at that. But the potential was realized by technology pioneers and teams of developers worked to get higher quality into the small file sizes needed to be able to transport the data in a stream in real-time to the user.
The second generation of streaming is what we’re familiar with now. Good audio quality in reasonable file size and acceptable video quality when played back in a small window. The second generation of digital media streaming also introduced digital rights management, the ability to secure content and associate it with licenses that authorized the playback.
The third generation of digital media on the Internet is where Microsoft is now focusing development efforts. This new technology will meet the requirements of the film industry in the following areas:
Security – The third generation will include more robust digital rights management solutions to secure the delivery of digital media.
Quality – The consumer needs to have a high quality experience, similar to what they’re used to getting when watching movies at home on TV both in the video quality and in the quality of the delivery.
Improved economics – With technology providers like Microsoft focusing on creating digital rights management technology to secure the content and building the technology to deliver a high quality consumer experience, the film industry can focus their efforts on creating business models for distributing content online.
Windows Media 9 Series was built around these requirements and includes some new features that directly impact these areas.
No More Buffering Delays
A new feature in Windows Media 9 Series called Fast Streaming delivers an "instant-on " streaming experience for broadband users, effectively eliminating the buffering delays that consumers experience with streaming video today and offering a more TV-like viewing experience with the ability to quickly channel surf around video content on the web. This also eliminates the buffering users get when an ad is inserted into a video stream.
Fast Streaming also automatically optimizes the delivery of streaming audio and video to take advantage of the full bandwidth available to the user, which vastly reduces or eliminates the impact of congestion on the Web for broadband users.
High Quality Audio and Video
Codec improvement is an ongoing process. The new Windows Media 9 Series audio and video codecs improve quality approximately 20% without increasing the file size. This means online film providers can either increase their current quality levels or decrease their current bandwidth costs by switching to the new codecs.
Combining Fast Streaming with the new audio and video codecs brings a greatly improved online video experience to consumers and makes online distribution of films via video on demand services even more attractive to consumers and film distributors.
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Film Distribution on CDs and DVDs
Next generation DVD players are being developed to support the playback of more than the standard MPEG2 DVD format. This year at CES Microsoft announced that several leading DVD player manufacturers will be supporting Windows Media Audio on their DVD players this year with support for Windows Media Video not far behind. These manufacturers include Panasonic, Toshiba, Shinco and Apex and make up 99% of the DVD player industry.
The advantages to using a format like Windows Media on a DVD is that the increased compression efficiency means the DVDs can hold more movies, up to 4 on a single DVD, and still provide a high quality playback experience. Many PCs including PCs shipping with Windows XP are capable of playing back DVDs which broaden the DVD viewing options.
Alternatively some film distributors are selling single movies on a CD. A two hour movie encoded at 750 kilobit per second easily fits onto a standard CD offering an inexpensive movie distribution option.
Digital rights management works on CDs and DVDs too. Users simply pop in the protected content and either go online to acquire the license, or with some devices the license is acquired off of the CD or DVD itself.
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Theater Experiences
Technology is helping tomorrow’s theaters overcome some of the challenges that are squeezing the profitably from theater exhibition today. Some of those challenges include:
The Challenge
High Distribution Costs – The cost of sending films out to theaters across the country and around the world is fixed today based on the cost of the film prints themselves, anywhere from $1200-2000 per theater.
No Security – Distributors have little control over a film once it leaves their facilities. They have to hope that it’s delivered safely to the appropriate theaters and doesn’t fall into the wrong hands or is damaged along the way.
Degradation Issues – As a movie is screened it becomes progressively more scratched and dirty, eventually demanding a replacement print.
Limited Programming Flexibility – Currently theater owners are only set up to receive 35 mm films. Since the cost of film production is so high there’s little content beyond major independent and studio movies that can afford to take advantage of a theater screening.
Inflexible Advertising – Advertisers love advertising in theaters because they have a captive audience. But today’s theater advertising is limited to slide shows and rarely a filmed ad. But again, given the costs of film distribution not many advertisers can afford to send a 35 mm reel to each theater and even if many advertisers did so, the theater owners aren’t equipped to switch from one ad reel to the next.
The Solution
Digital distribution and exhibition of content in tomorrow’s theaters will overcome many of these limitations.
Streamlined Distribution – The distribution process will no longer involve bulky expensive film reels. Films can be sent digitally over the IP network to targeted theaters without ever having to duplicate a 35 mm reel. This streamlined distribution will pave the way for new programming options including concerts, sporting events, distance learning and more. Theater owners can program content quickly and easily, moving content from one auditorium to many, meeting market demand in a way they are currently unable to.
Integrated Digital Rights Management – Digital theater content will be secured before it ever leaves the content owners facility. DRM will enable tracking and license serving so theaters and content owners know exactly when and where the content is accessed.
Digital Preservation – The one thousandth time a digital movie is screened provides the same quality as the first time. There is no breakdown in the digital file as there is with film.
Demographically targeted advertising – Digital ads can be served from one location and targeted to specific theaters based on content being shown in that theater to a particular demographic.
The benefits of moving to digital distribution to theaters are clear. The costs for theater owners have been historically very to purchase the digital projectors and other equipment but some smaller theaters are finding that they can begin to achieve some of the benefits of digital cinema with off the shelf hardware and software. Recently theaters in Seattle and Dallas completed digital screenings of the critically acclaimed independent film “Wendigo.” Using a standard Windows-based workstation, Windows Media for the encoding, deliver and playback, and a DLP projector, the theater owners delivered high quality screenings. Customers were unable to tell that they were not watching a 35 mm film print.
Although a digital screening as described above isn’t something that would meet the requirements of a major blockbuster it is a great option for theaters interested in delivering independent and alternative content geared to specific audiences.
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Conclusions
Technology is changing the rules of the film industry just as it did for the music industry. With the growing interest from consumers to get movies and video content in different ways with different options, filmmakers and distributors are turning to technology to meet their demands. New technology like Windows Media 9 Series strives to achieve higher quality, greater efficiency, and greater audience reach all while driving down costs. All of these benefits open up new distribution opportunities to the film industry.
Monday 11 April 2011
King's Speech PG-13 release
'The King's Speech' PG-13 Version Gets Release Date
11:49 AM 3/24/2011 by Pamela McClintock
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Weinstein Company/Courtesy Everett CollectionTWC announces the R-rated version will no longer be shown.
In an unprecedented move, the Weinstein Co. will pull the R-rated version of The King’s Speech from theaters and release a PG-13 version of the Oscar winning film on April 1 in a bid to widen the audience.
King’s Speech, which won the Oscar for best picture, earned the R-rating because of language. In the PG-13 cut, numerous “fucks” have been muted. Other times, the word "shit" had been substituted in.
The teen-friendly version will play on 1,000 screens. In order to make sure moviegoers aren’t confused, the Weinstein Co. will have to mount a nationwide marketing campaign explaining the change in rating. Whether box office grosses will make up for the additional money spent on marketing is the big question.
Late last month, then-MPAA chair Bob Pisano and NATO president John Fithian signed a waiver allowing the Weinstein Co. to release the new version without having to wait 90 days from the time the R-rated version was pulled.
“We are thankful to the MPAA for their wisdom and swift action in approving the release of The King’s Speech PG-13 version,” TWC president of theatrical distribution and home entertainment Eric Lomis said.
Until a few years ago, there was no such provision for a waiver, meaning a distributor would have no choice but to wait 90 days. The King’s Speech marks the first time the waiver has been employed.
The only other time a film has been released in theaters with a new rating was in the case of Saturday Night Fever, but the PG version (the PG-13 rating did not exist then) came out months after the original R-rated film was out of theaters.
The Weinstein Co. believes the PG-13 version will generate box office revenues that otherwise would have been left on the table.
The King's Speech took in $23.5 million of its domestic haul since winning the Oscar in late February. But the theatrical run of the re-rated version should be relatively brief when it arrives on April 1, since the DVD debut of the original movie is slated for April 19, just over two weeks later, and most theater owners won't play a movie once it hits the home entertainment market.
The King’s Speech is one of the most successful independent films of all time, and a global blockbuster. In the U.S., the film has grossed $132.7 million for the Weinstein Co., which nabbed U.S. rights to the film before The King’s Speech started shooting.
Overseas, The King’s Speech has grossed north of $226 million.
Studios often resubmit films to the MPAA for a different rating for the DVD version.
Paul Release Date
'Paul' gets a Blu-ray release date
We've been given the official press release for the release of sci-fi comedy 'Paul' on Blu-ray. Will it have a steelbook edition? Will it contain an extra feature dedicated to pulling silly faces? All these questions and more answered below!
From the team that bought you Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead comes an out-of-this-world gift for Father’s Day and the must-own comedy adventure of the year… PAUL. Comedy duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost team up again in this inventive, laugh-out-loud film as Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost); two sci-fi geeks who embark on an insane road trip that alters their universe forever. Join Graeme, Clive and Paul on their road-trip adventure as Working Title and Universal Pictures (UK) Ltd bring you the hilarious PAUL on two disc DVD, two disc Blu-Ray Triple Play and two disc Limited Edition Blu-ray Steel Book on 13 June 2011.
For the past 60 years, an alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen; Superbad, Knocked Up) has been hanging out at a top-secret military base. When he discovers he's been taken prisoner, the quick-witted, smart-ass alien decides to escape the compound and hop on the first vehicle out of town-a rented RV containing Earthlings Graeme Willy (Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Frost) who are on a pilgrimage to America’s UFO heartland. Chased by federal agents and the fanatical father of a young woman that they accidentally kidnap, Graeme and Clive hatch a fumbling escape plan to return Paul to his mother ship. As the two nerds struggle to help, one little green man might just take his fellow outcasts from misfits to intergalactic heroes.
Co-written by Pegg and Frost, and directed by Greg Mottola (Superbad),PAULfeatures a fantastic supporting cast of Hollywood actors including Jason Bateman (Up in the Air, Juno), Bill Hader (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Superbad) and Kristian Wiig (Despicable Me, Knocked Up). Packed with brilliant special features, PAUL is the perfect comedy to share with your dad this Father’s Day on DVD and Blu-ray Triple Play!
Friday 8 April 2011
Thursday 7 April 2011
Audience and Institutions Exam Questions
Exam Questions
1. Eric Fellner, who heads Working Title Films argues, "It's not the film industry, it's the film business".
To what extent to you agree with this statement?
2. "Media production is dominated by global institutions, which sell their products and services to national audiences." To what extent do you agree with this statement?
3. To what extent is production, marketing and distribution important for an institution's success in the British marketplace?
4. How important is technological convergence for institutions and audiences within a media area which you studied?
5. To what extent have audiences influenced and affected an institution which you have studied?
6. Discuss the issues raised by an institution's need to target specific audiences within a media industry which you have studied.
7. To what extent has exhibition and exchange affected an institution which you have studied?
1. Eric Fellner, who heads Working Title Films argues, "It's not the film industry, it's the film business".
To what extent to you agree with this statement?
2. "Media production is dominated by global institutions, which sell their products and services to national audiences." To what extent do you agree with this statement?
3. To what extent is production, marketing and distribution important for an institution's success in the British marketplace?
4. How important is technological convergence for institutions and audiences within a media area which you studied?
5. To what extent have audiences influenced and affected an institution which you have studied?
6. Discuss the issues raised by an institution's need to target specific audiences within a media industry which you have studied.
7. To what extent has exhibition and exchange affected an institution which you have studied?
The King's Speech - Production and Marketing
The Major issues facing the British Film makers
Read the article below and create a blog post summarising the key points Tom Hooper makes about Film making today. Re watch what the Director of Kick Ass said and compare their views on the future of the industry
The Kings Speech
What do you think is the biggest challenge that the British film industry faces today?
Tom Hooper: Well, it’s interesting, I’ve lived through a really fascinating revolution. So I started marking films when I was 13 and when I was 13 there was no digital, you couldn’t shoot anything digitally because it didn’t exist yet so I had to shoot on film and I could only make films silently because I couldn’t afford to do sound and from four minutes of film I could maybe make a film that was two minutes log. And now what is extraordinary is that my i-phone has an HD camera on it with sync sound so all of us have the opportunity to make some kind of film for almost nothing if not nothing. The interesting thing is that I thought seeing this revolution happen there was going to be this big revolution where there would be a lot more films being made and being made a lot more cheaply. But the sad thing is that what hasn’t changed is the cost of marketing a film to the public. I’ll give you an example of the King’s Speech is being released in the US. The budget of our film was about 15 million dollars – at the very least they’ll probably spend 25 to 30 million marketing it America so they are going to spend almost double the cost of production on the cost of selling it and that is just in one country. So the sad thing about it is that there is still a kind of lock down on who gets to make films that reach everyone because even if you do effectively make your film for nothing, for a distributor they’ve still got to look at a huge amount of money to get the film out to everyone. So the revolution that I expected when the digital age came when I thought filmmaking would be very democratic hasn’t quite taken off. And the other thing that stopped that happening is unfortunately the star system, which still hasn’t gone away. In the end one of the ways to get the bandwidth to get people to pay attention to your films is to get a big star and that remains expensive.
Colin Firth: I think its very interesting listening to what Tom is saying and I think doing things does unlock the imagination and advance creativity, it doesn’t come from nothing. You can’t sit and wait for inspiration – it doesn’t work. It’s certainly true that you can make a film cheaply; I keep finding films that my nine-year old made on my flip phone. He’s at it, he’s doing it and he’s developing something that while is certainly entertaining for him could also be a skill, a story telling skill. I was thinking while Tom was talking about how now anyone can make a film for almost nothing but its not happening because you also have to be rather good at it, there has to be a skill in place for it to work. But you achieve that by doing exactly what Tom has just said and what you now have which is a gift that my generation didn’t have quite so much access to is stuff that you can do it on. We’ve always had pencil and paper but now we have filmmaking materials at our fingertips.
Tom Hooper: The other thing that is extraordinary is that you can make a film and you have the right to post it on YouTube.
Colin Firth: Yes you can release it yourself.
Tom Hooper: You can put it out in public and get some people seeing it and that’s an unbelievable revolution. Again, in the old days I made my films but no one saw them apart from my family them because how would anyone see them.
Read the article below and create a blog post summarising the key points Tom Hooper makes about Film making today. Re watch what the Director of Kick Ass said and compare their views on the future of the industry
The Kings Speech
What do you think is the biggest challenge that the British film industry faces today?
Tom Hooper: Well, it’s interesting, I’ve lived through a really fascinating revolution. So I started marking films when I was 13 and when I was 13 there was no digital, you couldn’t shoot anything digitally because it didn’t exist yet so I had to shoot on film and I could only make films silently because I couldn’t afford to do sound and from four minutes of film I could maybe make a film that was two minutes log. And now what is extraordinary is that my i-phone has an HD camera on it with sync sound so all of us have the opportunity to make some kind of film for almost nothing if not nothing. The interesting thing is that I thought seeing this revolution happen there was going to be this big revolution where there would be a lot more films being made and being made a lot more cheaply. But the sad thing is that what hasn’t changed is the cost of marketing a film to the public. I’ll give you an example of the King’s Speech is being released in the US. The budget of our film was about 15 million dollars – at the very least they’ll probably spend 25 to 30 million marketing it America so they are going to spend almost double the cost of production on the cost of selling it and that is just in one country. So the sad thing about it is that there is still a kind of lock down on who gets to make films that reach everyone because even if you do effectively make your film for nothing, for a distributor they’ve still got to look at a huge amount of money to get the film out to everyone. So the revolution that I expected when the digital age came when I thought filmmaking would be very democratic hasn’t quite taken off. And the other thing that stopped that happening is unfortunately the star system, which still hasn’t gone away. In the end one of the ways to get the bandwidth to get people to pay attention to your films is to get a big star and that remains expensive.
Colin Firth: I think its very interesting listening to what Tom is saying and I think doing things does unlock the imagination and advance creativity, it doesn’t come from nothing. You can’t sit and wait for inspiration – it doesn’t work. It’s certainly true that you can make a film cheaply; I keep finding films that my nine-year old made on my flip phone. He’s at it, he’s doing it and he’s developing something that while is certainly entertaining for him could also be a skill, a story telling skill. I was thinking while Tom was talking about how now anyone can make a film for almost nothing but its not happening because you also have to be rather good at it, there has to be a skill in place for it to work. But you achieve that by doing exactly what Tom has just said and what you now have which is a gift that my generation didn’t have quite so much access to is stuff that you can do it on. We’ve always had pencil and paper but now we have filmmaking materials at our fingertips.
Tom Hooper: The other thing that is extraordinary is that you can make a film and you have the right to post it on YouTube.
Colin Firth: Yes you can release it yourself.
Tom Hooper: You can put it out in public and get some people seeing it and that’s an unbelievable revolution. Again, in the old days I made my films but no one saw them apart from my family them because how would anyone see them.
Wednesday 6 April 2011
Sunday 3 April 2011
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