Previously on… ‘Editing organazized’

1 October, 2008
screenwriting
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Pre-titles recaps have been around for years. For serialised drama, they get everyone up to speed. “Previously on Hill Street Blues…” Sometimes the format of the show includes an implied recap: at the start of each episode of ‘L.A. Law’ the characters have an office meeting that gets the office (and the audience) up to date on all the current cases.

With the availability of the internet, TV networks have turned more ongoing stories in their dramas. They know that viewers can use web-based info to get up to speed. As long as they make individual episodes interesting, people will make the investment in finding out more about the show. When big shows come back after extended breaks, whole recap shows are shown before episode one of a new season.

Some shows have dedicated recap editors who familiarise themselves with production workflows and the show by editing the recaps at the start of act one. In the near future, they may have more work to do – unless the process is automated…

As online video becomes more popular, production companies will be able to provide recap options for purchasers. Viewers will be able to assess how they want to invest in a TV show. If they want to watch from this point forward they’ll be able to choose the length of the recap they get with their purchased episodes: ranging from 15 to 90 minutes. If they want to start from the beginning of the season, or an earlier season, they’ll get recaps that prepare them for their ‘first’ episode. Recaps could also provided to bridge skipped seasons: they could be generated based on what episodes are bought.

Now that serialisation is the norm, writers should consider whether their three hour movie script might be better as a 17 hour epic (24 weekly ‘one hour’ episodes). Producers are more likely to say yes if the story will work over a further three seasons.

Producers and screenwriters also have the option to create recaps for episodes that don’t exist…

Why “Show, not tell” works

3 August, 2008
screenwriting
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The screenwriting principle of “show, not tell” works because people do not normally criticize their own work.

If you show the actions of a character, the audience will make their own judgements of who that character is and what they want. These judgements of the characters combine in the audience’s minds to build up their own stories about the ingredients of your movie. One of the tricks then is to let the audience sometimes get ahead of the characters and at other times let them fall behind.

People enjoy being correct in the assessments of what will happen. They also like to be surprised, as long as the surprises are consistent with what has gone before. If you are writing clear actions based on specific desires, the audience will enjoy developing their own takes on what is going on; very few people criticize their own ‘writing’ ability when enjoying a well-written film.

Curtains for Google? Apple patents inserting adverts into media at playback

19 June, 2008
Apple, User interface
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Over the last decade Google has been top of the heap through two technologies: its page-ranking search technology and the ability to place relevant advertising right next to the content on pages all over the web. The patent awarded yesterday might hand a similar technology to Apple: the ability to insert relevant advertising into all other forms of media at the point of playback.

If Apple or someone else comes up with a better search algorithm to select the adverts that appear during podcasts, movies and radio shows, Google might face some serious competition.

In fact many people might welcome the intrusion of advertising into digital media – if it means that they get that media for free.

We have to pay for our media one way or another: movie tickets, DVDs, official downloads, TV licenses and Pay TV are obvious payment points. Advertising, PR and sponsorship are less obvious.

One day we’ll be able to live by our preferences – we’ll be able to pay for our media directly and avoid messages from corporations, governments and individuals. On the other hand, we might want to have other people pay for our media:


An imaginary ‘media payment preferences’ control.

It seems as if Apple have been granted a patent that will bring this customisation a little closer. It is in the nature of patents that they are framed to cover as many possible future inventions as possible. They sometimes need to hide their true nature:

1. A method for presenting media by a media playback device, the method comprising: receiving a playback request to play a media group, the media group including a plurality of media items; determining whether auxiliary media is also to be played back; playing back media items from the media group; and playing the auxiliary media if the determining data determined that the auxiliary media is also to be played back.

It may be that patent 612029 granted to Apple today patents the ability to incorporate advertising into media content on playback. This means that every time you listen to a piece of music, a podcast, watch TV show or movie, a different advertisement appears:

In one implementation, presentation of a media group can involve not only presentation of media items of the media group but also presentation of auxiliary media. Another aspect pertains to how and when auxiliary media data is to be presented (e.g., played) by an electronic device. Another aspect pertains to updating or refreshing auxiliary media data. Still another aspect pertains to restricting presentation of primary media by an electronic device unless auxiliary data is also presented.

(my emphasis)

The patent gives examples of ‘a media group’ as any of the content that can be played on an iPod. It implies that a variable amount of content is automatically stored on a device and a method for choosing which media is played as ‘auxiliary media’ before, during or after playing a media group:

the method further comprises:storing a plurality of auxiliary media items on the media playback device; and determining one or more of the auxiliary media items that are to be played by the playing of the auxiliary media.

Here is where advertising is mentioned:

20. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the media items are selected from the group consisting of: songs, audiobooks, podcasts, and videos.

21. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the auxiliary media is advertising content.

In one example, the auxiliary media data can pertain to advertising. Advertising information can pertain to specific products, services, shows or events. When advertising is able to be refreshed or updated, improved advertising results can be achieved.

A functional flow diagram showing \'Present Playback Denied\' message\'
A functional flow diagram from the patent showing a ‘Present Playback Denied’ message if the secondary media (advertising) playback is disabled.

In one embodiment, since presentation of auxiliary data can be ensured, the cost to the user for an electronic device can be lowered. For example, the ability for advertisements or news to generate revenue can be used to offset the cost for the electronic device. For example, the presentation of auxiliary data can be used to subsidize the cost for the electronic device.

Different aspects, embodiments or implementations of the invention may yield one or more of the following advantages. One advantage is that a media playback device can present not only media items but also auxiliary media. The auxiliary data can be automatically provided and integrated (e.g., interspersed) with playback of media items. The auxiliary media can be media such as advertisements or news. For example, advertisements can be audio or video (i.e., multimedia) commercials or promotional segments, and news can pertain to national news headlines, sports highlights, international news, local news, etc. Another advantage is that auxiliary data can be automatically delivered to a media playback device so as to remain current and effective. Still another advantage is that the manner by which auxiliary media is interjected in playback of media can be controllable, such as by: user selections, user preferences, user actions, media item content providers, auxiliary media content providers, online media store, or media playback device manufacturers. Yet still another advantage is that a media playback device can require playback of auxiliary media in order to playback media items.

In a patent of over 10,000 words, the letters ‘advert’ are only used 14 times, but I think this is a major part of this patent.

This means that advertising-supported media will have the option to incorporate different advertising each time that it is played on a device (iPod, iPhone, TV, etc.). The advertising will be streamed automatically if a wireless connection is available. Previous advertising will be stored on the device so that it can be played if there is no connection to the internet.

Keeping the ads fresh
A functional flow diagram from the patent showing how secondary media data can be updated automatically.

The example I usually give is when we use media content to support our day-to-day conversations. If I mention a piece of music, it is very handy to have my iPod with me – I can use it to play back the specific track I’m talking about. I’d like to do that with TV shows and movies.

Imagine if someone I’m chatting with refers to a specific scene in an episode of Friends. It would be great to support that part of the conversation by viewing that scene. Using a 1TB iPod, I could hold almost any piece of music I could think of. However it will take a while before every movie or TV show I can think of will be storable on a single device.

Soon all media will available to us wirelessly. We’ll be able to pick any nearby surface and stream any media to it. How will we pay for this? It depends on the media. If you are a fan, you could buy the right to watch or listen to the media for the rest of your life (the equivalent of buying a DVD). On the other hand, if you want to see that media a single time, you probably won’t mind a short advertising message playing for a few seconds before or during the film or TV show (the equivalent of commercial TV).

Maybe advertising will be a lot less irritating when we have the option to pay for it not to be shown to us. I wonder if this sort of thing should be patented. It seems a little obvious…

Web ‘pages’ may be a retro concept sooner than you think

9 June, 2008
Alex, User interface
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Just when the world’s advertising and media companies think they’ve got a handle on using the internet to build and maintain relationships with millions of people, a new disruption might be on the way. Everyone might have to get into the software business.

An example: Soon Major League Baseball fans will be able to download an application to their phones that will keep them up to date with games as they happen. Using pictures as well as text. And video clips showing replays of the action moments after it happens. This is an application that will be available on the iPhone within the next few months.

Instead of going all over the web to buy music, you can visit one of the very few digital online music retailers – such as iTunes. The more these services act like software applications, the more successful they are. iTunes and similar software may go to the internet to find songs and videos, but the places it goes doesn’t matter to those searching for music.

These are the sort of services people will start to expect on their phones. If Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android (an operating system for telephones – coming soon) and Microsoft’s (they won’t be able to stay out of this) products take off, people won’t expect to jump from page to page any more. They’ll expect government, corporate, social and individual entities to provide services that represent the relationships the entities want to have with their audience.

Governments will provide a service to manage citizens’ relationship with their society. How much tax you pay, how many expenses you can claim, which state you spend the night, what benefits you deserve, what rights you have.

Corporations would have to express themselves by what they can usefully do for their audiences – if anything.

I imagine that some blogs will evolve into avatars. The things we write, the pictures we like, the way we turn a phrase might one day be converted into a digital representation of ourselves. We’ll have the option for our blogs to speak for us if we are too busy to get involved in a conversation.

Will the web of linked pages that most people identify as the internet still be around in five years time? If not, will applications replace it?

Experiments on Vimeo

30 May, 2008
Alex, Links
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More handheld time lapse doodles. Click the Vimeo for an HD version.

There are many edits in this video to make the footage match the music – mainly speeding up and slowing down the picture. I was barely on time for an appointment, so my route was pre-determined. Sadly that meant following a stranger for a few minutes. It was a coincidence! Click the Vimeo for an larger version.

This one is a video version of the Victorian saying: ‘I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I’m writing you this long one.’ I wanted to post the video the same day as I shot it, so I only had just over 30 minutes to do the edit. Click the Vimeo for an HD version.

Longer-term storage might catch up…

28 May, 2008
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…in the medium term. At the moment it makes financial sense for freelance editors to buy a drive or two per client and break them out each time a new job comes up. With the transition from DV and HDV to higher-bandwidth codecs, we’re all hoping for a larger capacity long-term backup system.

I think a CD-sized write-once disc that can hold 1-5TB is a good target. Once you write two copies, you got a good backup system that does take up too much space. The Register talks about a possible candidate. They even state a 100MB/s read-write data rate. Not bad.

A car lands in an alley in seven years and five months

It is seven years until we reach the date portrayed in ‘Back to the Future Part II.’ There probably won’t be flying cars and weather control, but we might have a new disposable optical format based on lasers and diodes.

The alternative is that everything will be kept in a distributed cloud of storage accessible by the IPv7-enabled internet, and no-one will need to see a storage medium ever again.

Idea: Watching movies with commentary tracks in cinemas

20 May, 2008
Apple, User interface
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The BBC currently provide a a commentary track for the current edition of Doctor Who. Imagine if these were available for new movies.

A recent patent filing by Apple proposes public very local networks for iPhones and iPod Touches.

The idea is that shops, public buildings and restaurants set up location-specific applications that appear on iPhones when customers wander into the area of their wireless networks. Restaurants could provide custom menus (for those with food intolerances or on restricted diets), museums and art galleries could provide extra information. Shops could provide customer-specific offers.

If this works, why not provide commentary tracks for moviegoers? If you’ve see the film before, yet want to go and see it with friends, you can turn up and download an alternate soundtrack. You are more likely to see the film a second time in a short period of time. The cinemas sell more tickets.

You could even have alternate language soundtracks or an audio description track for the visually impaired. Imagine if the audio playing software on your iPhone could be triggered by a wireless signal to sync with the film when it starts (or even whenever the person arrives to watch the film).

The software could also ask permission to deny incoming texts and telephone calls until the film is over!

For UK readers: Stephen Fry on the future of the BBC

12 May, 2008
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If you’d like to get up to speed on the nature of publicly-funded broadcasting, you’d better go on over to the BBC iPlayer to see Stephen Fry’s speech on the subject.

For those without access to the iPlayer, here’s a quote:

“How can an audience be brought to a channel that showed nothing but worthy programming? No matter how excellently produced. Isn’t the whole point of the BBC, as a major channel, a real player in TV production – across the spectrum of genres and demographics… isn’t the whole point of that BBC its ability to draw audiences into public service broadcasting programming by virtue of their loyalty and trust in a brand that provides entertainment too, pure and simple […]
In a sense, the nature of the BBC gives permission to all kinds of people to watch programmes they otherwise might not. What is the alternative? A ghettoised, balkanised ‘electronic bookshop of the home’ – no stations, no network, just a narrowcast provider spitting out content on channels that fulfill some ghastly and wholly insulting demographic profile: soccer mum, trailer trash, teenager, gay, black music lover, Essex girl, sports fan, bored housewife – all watching programmes specifically for them with ads targeting them. Is that what we mean by inclusivity? Is that what we mean by plurality? God help us. I do hope not. […]”

The full transcript is on the BBC website.

Light from windows

21 April, 2008
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My friend Jean has been very good to me. She’s arranged for my blog to be linked from the Internet Movie Database. Twice. She sends me very interesting links. Here’s one that makes me seem cultured:

This is an example from one of three ongoing photography projects. This one was started in 1995.

When I start making movies, I like the idea of lighting them like this. Unfortunately, it’s been done before: