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[Tuesday at NAB]
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Hollywood Transitions to Digital
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by Sharon Rae Pettigrew,
~ April 15, 2008
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NAB DAILY NEWS
You’re already in Vegas, so by now the alter ego mindset has kicked in. In a town where more is better, what can compete with Sin City? Only Hollywood trumps.
The Super Session “The New Hollywood! A New World of Entertain-ment!” today, 3:30–5 p.m., examines how the transition to digital and new technologies is transforming the industry.
Keynote speaker Suzanne Stefanac, director, AFI Digital Content Lab, will lead a panel of executives discussing what’s next for Hollywood.
While Stefanac “officially” moved to Hollywood a year-and-a-half ago, “Like most other humans alive today, I grew up in Hollywood,” she said. “It was there at every turn. Movies, television and magazine racks all confirmed what we already knew: Hollywood is the epicenter of our collective entertainment universe.”
FORMIDABLE CENTER
Stefanac contends the geographic Hollywood remains a formidable center.
“The Oscars are still held at the Kodak — though many note that this year’s four top acting awards all went to artists from other countries,” Stefanac said. “Dozens of studios still call it home — and not all are porn-related! It’s still a town where handshake deals can make or break a star, though increasingly both sides are demanding language that guarantees digital rights across all galaxies and on all platforms already identified and yet to be invented.”
So how has the transition to digital affected Hollywood and the world of entertainment? One panelist has the answer, short and sweet.
“How hasn’t it affected Hollywood?” said David Gale, executive vice president, New Media, MTV Networks. “It is affecting every aspect of the business from increases in piracy … which has almost destroyed the music business and is greatly impacting the movie business; to lowering costs of creating visual effects … to opening up new entertainment options that both enhance the business … and create competition.”
John Marino is vice president, Science & Technology at NAB.
“Digital editing and digital cameras are the main drivers for Hollywood’s transition to the future,” he said. “Production costs are being greatly reduced, time to complete projects is decreasing, and more time for creativity is available. The transition is providing opportunities for young creatives who are intimately familiar with digital hardware and editing applications.”
So the “New Hollywood” is all about evolution.
CONTENT TRANSFORMATION
“The transformation was from the way content was created in the past to the way content will be created in the very near future,” Marino said.
“Like so much else these days, Hollywood is actually globally dispersed across our datascape,” Stefanac said. “Exabytes of digitized film, video, music and games all stream around the globe at the speed of light, landing on millions upon millions of screens. As consumers of media, we’ve come to expect our entertainment to be available anytime, on any device, personalized, localized, social and rich with niche and user-generated creations. As creators of media, we quickly learn that we not only have to keep up, we must somehow stand out. That’s no easy trick in an era during which more than 10 billion videos are viewed each month on YouTube alone.”
John Honeycutt serves as executive vice president and chief media technology officer, Discovery Communications, and as a session panelist.
“The new Hollywood is really about finding consumer-engaging content in any place they chose to consume it,” Honeycutt said. “Discovery Networks are available on traditional TV in 35 languages in 170 countries.”
Availability extends through companion properties as well. For example, Discovery’s “howstuffworks.com” uses companion Discovery video content to engage consumers.
“For example, say you are looking up how a hybrid vehicle works. You might see a video clip from a ‘Mythbusters’ show,” Honeycutt said. “It’s about consumption of content in multiple platforms in multiple settings that provide an engaging experience.”
While this has opened up opportunities, it has also complicated the process of content creation, according to Honeycutt.
“At Discovery, we’re producing our content to fit many different formats. We start with producing for the television but then will need to recalibrate that content to fit mobile, online, on-demand formats … everything from widescreen … to small screen such as cell phones and digital video on-demand.”
THE BIG PICTURE
Stefanac said even if a venture is modest, it’s never been more important to embrace the big picture.
“It used to be enough to build an accompanying Web site to house creative,” Stefanac said. “But today, savvy producers are customizing their content for a variety of screens and are syndicating their content across multiple distribution platforms and partners. The ad revenue sharing on the best of these aggregation sites constitutes some of the most reliable monetization around.”
MTV’s Gale added that as the role of television changes to an on-demand medium, the economics change as well.
“It is not only an issue for the Guilds and how their members get a fair share of the revenues,” Gale said. “It becomes a question of how to justify the high costs of making content when it can be seen anywhere without advertising on demand. The syndication business will be hugely affected; new avenues of revenue will open up. But then the question becomes ‘how do you monetize those areas?’”
“Standards need to be considered,” said Discovery’s Honeycutt. “We are a content company first and foremost. When you look at platforms that are emerging, it’s about standards. What works as standard on one platform doesn’t necessarily work on another platform. Content must be manipulated several times to get on different formats. This takes time and money and is a challenge in the industry. The pace of standardization is not rapid at this time. There are different standards for each platform.”
New media have matured beyond the point where a cutting-edge new technology or a stunning widget is enough to win the day, Stefanac said.
“Nothing trumps a great storyline,” she said. “Ever since we first sat around fires together, we’ve wanted to submit to compelling narrative and even the best interactive games reflect this truth. To be successful, the core content itself has to be what attracts and holds an audience.”
Stefanac also noted that starting last year, “original narrative programming that exists only on broadband is now eligible to compete for main Primetime Emmys. May the best story win!”
IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK
Discovery’s Honeycutt called the speed at which content can be moved around both exciting and scary.
“We can e-mail assets back and forth from production or an office, and get immediate editorial feedback and approval,” he said. “We have the ability to shoot [video of] something in the middle of Africa and within minutes have it on the desk of an approval executive. It’s great, but complicated.”
“Instead of going through the film process, digital cameras with their inherent ability to immediately display captured scenes are proving to be very efficient from the standpoint of minimizing the time to shoot,” agreed NAB’s Marino. “Digital dailies are now commonplace. Digital editing tools allow effects to be easily created and tested like never before. Digital distribution on content offers a way to safeguard assets while distributing them electronically faster than ever to hundreds of locations at lower costs. Digital presentation technology — whether in the home or in the theater — is becoming the standard for public viewing.”
Marino said the transition away from film simplifies life for theater operators and “allows them to easily insert pre-show advertisements and offer special satellite-fed showings to corporate customers.”
Barry Rebo, chairman, Emerging Pictures/Emerging Cinemas LLC, and Paul Ledak, vice president and chief technologist, Consumer Electronics Engineering & Technology Services Division, IBM, will also serve as panelists.
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