When Rocketboom, a three-minute newscast on technology and culture, signed on to be distributed by blip.tv, blip developed the first clickable overlay ads on QuickTime versions of the show for Rocketboom’s sponsor, Comedy Central’s The Sarah Silverman Program.
“It’s important for a couple of reasons,” said Mike Hudack, blip’s CEO. “Blip focuses on serialized content on the web and a lot of people watch it in iTunes. They subscribe to it and it gets delivered in podcast, so a large percent of the viewers see it in QuickTime. If you sell overlays that only play in Flash, you only hit a percentage of the audience. Now you’re making everybody happy because you get an ad in front of the entire audience and people can click on it. If it’s not important, they can hide it which is important for the show’s creator and the viewer.”
Andrew Baron, founder of Rocketboom, said the sponsorship model is “a great system because we burn the sponsorship message into our master file and distribute across all platforms. Not just one Flash file, but all our files, everywhere, through our own site (iTunes, Facebook, YouTube, TiVo, etc.).”
The ads were sold to Comedy Central by Deep Focus/New York. Eric Druckenmiller, the agency’s media director, said QuickTime has a hard coded video delivery technology unlike Windows Media Player that makes it difficult to serve ads. “We figured out how to get the Flash overlay to exist in the QuickTime environment for the first time. So the ads are playing in the iTunes world, the coveted Apple platform.”
The two-week campaign, which ended Oct. 3, featured overlay ads to promote the second season of The Sarah Silverman Program.
Rocketboom was used because “its underground video has an irreverent quality to it, like Sarah Silverman,” Druckenmiller said. He noted blip.tv was a good place for the advertising for two reasons: “it mirrors the irreverence of the show and the ad delivery methodology of the overlays was the most effective way of reaching the audience.” He said overlays were preferable to pre-rolls and post-rolls and the ability to deliver them in QuickTime increased the views.
Hudack said blip.tv will play overlay ads in QuickTime again. “We’re talking to advertisers about using it in the future,” he said.
“Se7en” Turns 30, Gets A Special Restoration From David Fincher For Its Re-Release
For David Fincher, seeing “Se7en” in 4K was an experience he can only describe as harrowing. That or a high school reunion.
“There are definitely moments that you go, ‘What was I thinking?’ Or ‘Why did I let this person have that hairdo’?” Fincher said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
He’s OK with the film being a product of its time in most respects. But some things just could not stand in high-definition resolution.
“It was a little decrepit, to be honest,” said Fincher. “We needed to resuscitate it. There are things you can see in 4K HDR that you cannot see on a film print.”
Ever the perfectionist, he and a team got to work on a new restoration of the film for its 30th anniversary re-release. This weekend the restored “Se7en” will play on IMAX screens for the first time in the U.S. and Canada, and on Jan. 7, the 4K UHD home video version will be available as well.
The dark crime thriller written by Andrew Kevin Walker and starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as a pair of detectives looking for a serial killer was somewhat of a career-reviver for Fincher, whose directorial debut “Alien 3” had not gone well. “Se7en” was not a sure thing: It was made for only $34 million (and only got that when Fincher managed to persuade studio execs to give up $3 million more). But it went on to earn more than $327 million, not accounting for inflation, and continues to influence the genre.
Fincher has over the years overseen several restorations of the film (including one for laser disc) but decided this needed to be the last. It’s why he insisted on an 8K scan that they could derive the 4K from. He wanted to ensure that it wouldn’t have to be repeated when screens get more... Read More