Guest Column

Strategies for Future-Proofing Media Archives

Tue, 01/16/2024 - 09:23 -- Jonathan Morgan

Preserving media assets is critical. Archiving media content not only enables assets to be remonetized, but it also empowers content creators to maximize viewer engagement and drive consumer satisfaction. Historically, the cinema industry has found media archiving challenging, with real-world instances of movie libraries on tape going up in flames, the wrong files being deleted, and critical security issues.

Tags: 

Coping with COVID Thanks to the Cloud

Thu, 09/15/2022 - 13:26 -- Anonymous (not verified)

The National Film & Television School, based in Beaconsfield, to the west of London, has been nurturing talent in the industry for more than 50 years. So, you can imagine how scary it felt when, back in March 2020, I had to send an email telling all our students that the gathering pandemic meant we had to close our doors.

HDR and Where the Crawdads Sing

Mon, 07/18/2022 - 10:17 -- Jeroen Hendriks

[Editor’s Note: Jeroen Hendriks served as digital imaging technician on the feature film Where the Crawdads Sing, which opened in theatres this past weekend. Here, in his own words, are his thoughts about the project.] After having positive experiences using Sony’s OLED monitors for years, I chose their PVM-X2400 24-inch 4K high dynamic range monitor for use on my latest project Where the Crawdads Sing, based on the best-selling novel.

Celebrating the Color Grading Art

Thu, 06/02/2022 - 12:50 -- Wolfgang Lempp

Since the dawn of color cinema, there has always been a demand for a skilled and sympathetic person to guide color throughout a production. Back then, the color timer worked to the instructions of the cinematographer, looking essentially to achieve consistency: dramatic color shifts using irreversible wet chemistry were rarely undertaken. But while the director and cinematographer may be household names, the colorist may still go unheralded outside a small community. To correct this neglect of a vital talent in the overall creative team, last year we created the FilmLight Color Awards.

Exhibition Needs Immersive Experiences

Thu, 05/19/2022 - 08:31 -- Robb Wagner

Today’s movie theatre operators are facing a dilemma: While they’ve made investments and improvements that were supposed to keep their theatres full, too many seats remain empty, and they don’t have endless resources to keep throwing at improving their experience. What’s the solution? In my opinion, operators don’t need to do things better. They need to do things differently. I firmly believe the movie theatre of the future will offer hyper-focused content and be experiential.

Netflix Experiments with Pricing to Combat Account Sharing

Tue, 04/19/2022 - 09:18 -- Eleanor Patterson

Streaming service giant Netflix is experimenting with its pricing policies in a handful of countries in response to high rates of account sharing. Eleanor Patterson, assistant professor of media studies in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University, explains what this experiment means for U.S. account sharing and the future of streaming platforms.

Attracting Moviegoers Post-COVID

Thu, 03/03/2022 - 10:10 -- Showtime Analytics

Recency frequency monetary modeling is a proven marketing model for behavior-based customer segmentation. By helping marketers analyze and action their customers’ behavior, it drives the strategy that sits behind successful marketing campaigns. But how does a cinema circuit apply the RFM model to post-COVID closures? In October 2021 Showtime launched our new Customer Analytics product at the UK Cinema Association Conference in London. There we presented a case study of how we applied the recency frequency monetary model to the Irish cinema chain Movies@ to help them bring audiences back to their cinemas for Universal Pictures release of the James Bond blockbuster No Time to Die.

Managing Stowaway's Workflow

Mon, 11/08/2021 - 11:57 -- Meagan Keane

Netflix’s Stowaway, starring Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson and Toni Collette, follows a space mission that is headed to Mars when an unintended stowaway accidentally causes severe damage to the spaceship’s life support systems. Facing dwindling resources and a potentially fatal outcome, the crew is forced to make an impossible decision.

The Seven “Cins” of Cinema

Mon, 11/01/2021 - 10:53 -- Mark Mayfield

So much time and energy are spent educating cinema professionals how to properly design cinemas, including installed sound and projection systems. We forget the best lessons typically come from our mistakes. In the 30-plus years I’ve been in the cinema industry, I’ve learned a ton from THX, Dolby, the Hollywood post-production community, and the brilliant engineers I’ve been so fortunate to work with.

Pages

Subscribe to Guest Column