Audience fragmentation has introduced a scenario where commercial advertising is being extended to encompass broadcast television, cinema, 3D, iPods, PDAs, cell phones, the Internet, viral marketing, video games, DVRs, interactivity and on-demand content. With this, traditional advertising models are expanding to include branded content opportunities offering product placement, product involvement, and/or sponsorship programs.
Commercialmakers will have the chance to scrutinize these new content delivery platforms to better understand the opportunities that they create, as well as their impact on production and post, next week at the 2006 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention in Las Vegas.
Many think this could be a significant show, as these areas have generated a fairly steady flow of news this past year. With standards in sight and deployment deals in place, digital cinema is advancing. At press time there were an estimated 336 digital cinema screens in the U.S., and that number will likely top 1,000 later this year. On the broadcast side, available HD content continues to grow, with series such as Saturday Night Live, American Idol and Late Show with David Letterman going HD this past year; and Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy among those scheduled to go HD next Fall.
Meanwhile, Modeo and MediaFlo both began mobile content delivery trials in the U.S. this past year, and trials and or deployment also took place in countries including Australia, Japan and Korea, as well as throughout Europe.
A penetrating dynamic that can’t be ignored is Apple’s launch of the video iPod and its impact on pop culture. Meanwhile the evolution of the Web and viral marketing continued at a brisk pace.
“We are heading toward ubiquitous computing–everything is everywhere,” says Dean Winkler, chief technology officer of the Crossroads group of companies that includes Crossroads Films, bicoastal and Chicago, and editorial house 89, New York. “All of this offers opportunities, and it crushes things that don’t keep up.”
“The industry is really trying to understand what the business model is going to look like,” said Roy Stewart, VP of business development for digital media services at Ascent Media Group, the Santa Monica-headquartered parent of companies such as RIOT, Company 3 and Method. “It changes the advertising model and will have a significant effect on the whole industry. I think there are opportunities in the promise of these new devices. Maybe we can do better targeting of advertising and marketing? Will there be advertising-supported content available at no charge? There are a lot of questions and not a lot of answers.”
Powerful advertising will remain based on strong creative, however, there are production challenges to effectively deliver these messages in new and varied ways, pointed out Larry Bridges, CEO of multi-city Red Car, which is headquartered in Santa Monica.
“The advertising industry is diversifying across different mediums using the same strengths which apply as advertising professionals,” he said. “There are people in the business of creating emotion and visual impact. That remains the same.”
“[New distribution mediums] create opportunities to define what it means to put video on a cell phone, which will become a high art; I also think there will be a high art of Internet television,” Bridges added.
“On the production front, resolution demands are splintering–but toward both the high and low end,” he related. “We have to be thinking about high definition, going up in terms of production design, cinematography, toward cinema [which is already reaching 2k and 4k resolutions]. And at the same time we are being thrust into a mini world where we have to downscale from standard definition and are being asked to provide emotion punch with extremely low levels of resolution.”
Winkler suggests that this scenario makes a case for finishing in 24p. He says this format gives commercialmakers the resolution they need to get a master to HDTV broadcasting or to the cinema. “Its also better for Web or mobile products,” he explained. “This is because 24p compresses the images more efficiently due to the fact that there is no interlacing and fewer frames–this means less download time.”
Bridges pointed out that while examining these new areas, it is important not to lose sight of today’s advertising model. “Traditional ads are still there, and they are fit as a fiddle and they are still efficient,” he said. “The surprise of this year might be the a resurgence of interest in traditional television advertising, caused by the space being too crowded with banners, ineffective Internet commercials, and the failure of product placement–which is an audience alienator.
“The advantage of the Internet is that you can find you target audience,” he continued. “The downside is you can’t create emotional connections. I believe television does that. Maybe that’s what left– TV will be more defined as establishing an emotion connection with customers.”
While the NAB exhibits and new technologies remain a hot ticket for commercialmakers, Bridges believes that with these media outlets beginning to define themselves more clearly, this will also be a year for learning and digesting a lot of new information.
The NAB has created a number of conferences that will facilitate this exploration. One that may interest the advertising community is the MoTV: Mobile Video and TV Forum. This conference is designed to dissect the technologies and business opportunities envisioned for the near future.
That includes a panel on “Killer Content” designed to examine video content currently available for mobile phones, ranging from mobile murder dramas inspired by Fox’s 24 to news clips and sports. The session will also look at a trend in Europe in which consumers are posting mobile video blogs. The session will ask questions such as: Who’s got the killer content? How is it produced? And how is it being monetized?
Another panel will examine other ancillary revenue opportunities to monetize content and build brands using existing technologies such as SMS text messaging, wallpapers, ringtones, quizzes and games. It will also look at “Visual Radio,” graphical information synced with radio broadcasts, which some believe might emerge over the next 12 months as an opportunity for radio stations.
Separately, IPTV World is a one-day conference that aims to answer questions concerning telco-delivered video, such as how long will it take to become competitive and what are the opportunities in a world of infinite channels and niche audiences.
Additionally, there’s the NAB Podcasting Summit, a two-day event with topics ranging from production techniques and encoding to distribution and business issues.
At the other end of the spectrum, the anticipated Digital Cinema Summit–which will be keynoted by director James Cameron and National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) president John Fithian–will explore how digital technologies are impacting everything from high-end production and postproduction to distribution and exhibition. The sessions will include a progress report on digital cinema, as well as the promise of 3D.
“It’s an especially critical year because we are moving to [digital cinema] deployment and implementation issues,” related Charles S. Swartz, executive director/CEO of the Entertainment Technology Center at USC (ETC-USC), which is co-producing this year’s Digital Cinema Summit with SMPTE.
On the production and post front, digital cameras, postproduction workflow and color management are all scheduled Digital Cinema Summit session topics. Among the speakers are senior colorist Lou Levinson of bicoastal Post Logic Studios; Terry Brown, senior VP of engineering/chief technology officer, Technicolor Content Services, New York; and directors of photography Steven Poster, ASC, Curtis Clark, ASC and Daryn Okada, ASC.
Craig Henighan Sounds Off On “Deadpool & Wolverine”
Hollywood lore has it that character actor Edmund Gwenn--while on his deathbed--quipped, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
The second part of that darkly witty utterance remains all too true today as Craig Henighan--a Best Achievement in Sound Mixing Oscar nominee in 2019 for Roma--can attest in that he had to grapple with the sonic of being comic for this year’s box office hit, Deadpool & Wolverine (20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios).
The degree of inherent difficulty was ramped up even further because Deadpool & Wolverine had to seamlessly bring together high action-adventure exploits with moments and dialogue that tickled the funny bone. There’s a mesh of humorous banter--a staple of the franchise--along with major spectacle replete with explosions, fights, an impactful score and off-the-wall musical numbers.
Henighan explained that among the prime challenges for him from a sound perspective was having to make sure every joke landed within the construct of a superhero film. The tendency for a tentpole movie of this variety, he noted, is to gravitate towards big, loud audio spanning music, dialogue and sound effects. But the unique comedic element of Deadpool & Wolverine necessitated that re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor Henighan strike a delicate balance. “You need to get out of the way for the comedy,” he related. The jokes in a superhero film become “a real dance” as Henighan had to establish a rhythm that did justice to both the comedy and the action as the narrative moves back and forth between them--and sometimes the funny and the high energy, high decibel superhero dynamic unfold simultaneously in a scene or sequence. The “sonic fabric” has to... Read More