OUR TOP TEN POSTS OF 2011

By Scott Macaulay

As 2011 comes to a close, here, based on Google Analytics, are this site’s top ten posts of the year.

1. 25 New Faces of 2011. I mean, of course — what else would have been our top traffic-getter of the year? As it does every year, the unveiling of our 25 New Faces list outpaced everything else on the site by almost three to one. And one thing I’m especially proud of — at the time we pick them, the people on this list are real discoveries. As I look at lists with similar ambitions on other sites, I’m struck by the fact that their lists mostly chart people who’ve already broken through the independent media whereas we at Filmmaker actually look at the work and try to pick people who we think are going to break in some way. We’re often years ahead of the curve. Pariah director Dee Rees, for example, was picked in 2008. So, one reason the list generates so much traffic is simply because as the filmmakers we profile gain greater prominence, web surfers keep discovering their pages.

2. Francis Ford Coppola Talks to Toronto at TIFF. New contributor Allan Tong’s recap of Francis Ford Coppola’s talk with Cameron Bailey at this year’s Toronto Film Festival got our second-best traffic of the year. One reason was because the gods at iMDb loved the piece, front-paging it for three days in a row. Another was Coppola’s mix of remembrance with advice, such as these words to young filmmakers: “To guys, I say get married…When I was married I was broke and eight weeks later I had a job as a screenwriter. I attributed a lot of it to my family and our sense of togetherness. If you’re a young woman, I would say don’t get married. Then you have this guy getting you to do everything for his career.”

3. Fuller: On Great Boring Movies and Cultural Vegetables. About 15 months ago I made a big effort to build out the FilmmakerMagazine.com site with new writers and content that would be different from what’s in … Read the rest

MEDIA CURRENT: YOU SHOULD BE PARANOID

By David Rosen

Sometimes paranoids are right to worry. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) recently exposed a common practice long hidden by wireless carriers: they track your every keystroke and movement through software known as Carrier IQ (CIQ).

As Franken warned, “The average user of any device equipped with Carrier IQ software has no way of knowing that this software is running, what information it is getting, and who it is giving it to—and that’s a problem.”

Carrier IQ, located in Mountain View, CA, was founded in 2005 and is backed by a group of VCs. Its software is installed on about 150 million wireless devices through licensing agreements with AT&T, HTC, Nokia, RIM (BlackBerry), Samsung, Sprint and Verizon Wireless. It runs on a variety of different operating systems, including Apple OS and Google’s Android; however, it does not run on Microsoft’s Windows.

According to the company, its software is designed to improve mobile communications. CIQ is used to help businesses with GPS tracking of mobile devices and coordinate employee travel.

Running under the app functions, CIQ doesn’t require the user’s consent (or knowledge!) to operate. On Android phones, it can track a user’s keystrokes, record telephone calls, store text messages, track location and more. Most troubling, it is difficult to impossible to disable. (A report by the Electronic Freedom Foundation details how CIQ works.)

The controversy over CIQ came to light a few weeks ago when Trevor Eckhart, a security researcher exposed the extent of information accessible by the software; Eckhart has been attacked for working for a firm that is a potential rival to Carrier IQ. Nevertheless, his findings are disturbing.

Carrier IQ initially denied that there was anything suspicious about its software.  However, further analysis revealed a bug in the software that allowed SMS messages to be captured.

Making matters worse, Carrier IQ attempted to silence Eckhart with a cease-and-desist letter, demanding he replace his analysis with a statement disavowing his research. Bowing to online pressure, it withdrew the letter.

Concerns about CIQ’s tracking functions came to national attention last week when Sen. Franken questioned FBI director Robert Muller before the … Read the rest

MEDIA CURRENT: YOUR TV FUTURE

By David Rosen

Internet Video (IV) will play an increasingly important role in the distribution of independent “film.” Even for the few who still shoot, edit and distribute on 16mm or 35mm stock, your future – if only for marketing and promotion — is tied to the digital 1s and 0s that are redefining media and communications.

IV distribution is restructuring release “windows” and revenue recoupment.  Revenue opportunities through DVD sales are shrinking; the TV market (with the exception of HBO, PBS and some made-fors) is evaporating; international commitments are tougher to snag; and the once higher mark-up on educational sales is a thing of the past.

For indie makers, IV distribution promises a new opportunity to reach viewers, recoup the production investment and go on to make one’s next film. However, the IV market is like the 1848 California Gold Rush – everything was possible, but few found gold.

It is impossible to predict the future of indie film distribution, but three conferences on how the commercial television business are addressing the disruptive impact of the Internet offer some useful insights. They paint a dismal picture of what’s coming and how indie filmmakers might be able to take advantage of these changes.

The Social TV Summit focused on how the industry has been adapting to “out-of-the-box” changes; the Future of TV Forum focused on the industry’s efforts to keep technological disruptions “inside-the-box”; and the TV of Tomorrow sought to thread the needle between the two approaches.  As one industry wag proclaimed, the old “www” for “World Wide Web” now means video “whatever whenever wherever.”

Broadband Internet is a disruptive technology challenging established ways of doing business for movies and television. It challenges the TV business in three critical ways: (i) it represents a new way to distribute programming content through either Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) or Over-the-Top (OTT) methods; (ii) it offers a new, more interactive or social media experience through services like Twitter and Facebook; and (iii) it is spawning the incorporation of second (and sometimes third) interactive devices (e.g., computer, smartphone or tablet) as part of the viewing experience.

Three additional factors are adding … Read the rest

MEDIA CURRENT: THE IP WARS

By David Rosen

After the Thanksgiving recess, Congress is expected to vote on two bills that will influence the future of online Intellectual Property (IP).

The Senate bill (S. 968) is dubbed the “PROTECT IP Act” (PIPA) which stands for the “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act”; it was adopted by the Judiciary Committee in May. The House bill (H.R.3261) is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and is currently being deliberated.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the music industry and a handful of digital rights holders, including games companies Sony and Nintendo, are pushing the bills. (Forbes published a strong defense of the Senate bill.)

The fight against this new effort to police IP on the web is being led by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), a coalition of free-speech advocates including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EEF), Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch as well as an growing assortment of tech and financial services companies like American Express, eBay, Google and Yahoo!

The bills are ostensibly intended to enable the U.S. Department of Justice to secure a court order to shut down a website accused of copyright infringement. These are designated as “rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods.” The bills are designed to halt websites (particularly those outside the U.S.) from offering bootlegged movies, knockoff Louis Vuitton handbags, fake Viagra and other questionable merchandise.

The bills essentially complement each other. PROTECT-IP is aimed at sites “dedicated to infringing activities,” while SOPA goes after sites that apparently don’t do enough to track and police infringement. In addition, SOPA expands U.S. enforcement powers to take down foreign sites and not just those claiming to be a “U.S. authorized version.”

Most alarming to web businesses, SOPA would allow the U.S. government to establish a blacklist of sites that it claims are infringing copyright claims. Such a blacklist would violate the due process rights of site owners, but would also require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to shut down access to a site on the blacklist. In addition, web payments companies (like Paypal and Visa) as … Read the rest

MULLING THE INDUSTRIAL POLICY OF STEVE JOBS

By Scott Macaulay

One of the interesting tidbits in Walter Isaacson’s underwhelming bio of Steve Jobs is an account of the Apple CEO’s meeting with President Barack Obama. From the book:

“You’re headed for a one-term presidency,” Jobs told Obama at the outset. To prevent that, he said, the administration needed to be a lot more business-friendly. He described how easy it was to build a factory in China, and said that it was almost impossible to do so these days in America, largely because of regulations and unnecessary costs.

Distressingly, this thread is never picked up again in the book, which ignores the most troubling aspect of Apple’s current business model — the human cost it inflicts on workers at the giant industrial plant, Foxconn, in China’s Shenzen province. Forget “regulations and unnecessary costs” — what about plain old labor laws? Could any American company replicate the low-cost, high-output model of such a plant? And would we, as a society, want to try?

To be fair, Apple is not the only company whose outsourced model relies on the long hours and dehumanizing work rules of Foxconn. Intel, Cisco, HP, Dell, Nokia and Amazon, among others, rely on the plant and, by extension, the Chinese industrial policy that created it.

One person who is talking about Apple’s labor practices abroad is monologuist Mike Daisey, whose The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs is currently playing at the Public Theater. Daisey is an Apple fan (as am I), but he is also a self-aware person who mulls the human cost of our digital lifestyle. Below, on The Daily Ticker, he discusses these issues and proposes a modest solution.

WALTER MURCH ON FCP X: “WHAT IS THE ‘PRO’ PART OF IT?”

By Scott Macaulay

Here’s editor Walter Murch on his first encounter with Apple’s new Final Cut Pro X, his correspondence with Apple, and the Kremlinology of Cupertino.

This was recorded at this past week’s Boston Supermeet. For a detailed report on his appearance, visit Chris Portal’s blog. (Hat tip: Notes on Video.)… Read the rest

STEVE JOBS, 1955 – 2011

By Scott Macaulay

R.I.P., Steve Jobs. Below, his 2005 Stanford University commencement speech.

… Read the rest

APPLE RETURNS FINAL CUT STUDIO TO MARKET

By Scott Macaulay

Macrumors reported today that Apple is now selling again Final Cut Studio, the “old” version of its desktop editing software that was retired upon the launch of its new Final Cut Pro X. The software is not available in stores or even via online sale; customers must call 1-800-MY-APPLE to order the software.

As has been reported here and elsewhere, the Final Cut Pro X release has been a controversial one. Although many editors applauded its rethought paradigm and powerful tools, just as many pointed to missing features and declared it not suitable for professional use. Final Cut Pro X is also not compatible with older Final Cut projects. Apple’s decision to give Final Cut Pro Studio end-of-life status was particularly confounding in this context as editors needing new versions of the old software to continue their familiar workflows were out of luck. Upon Final Cut Pro X’s release, users complained in mass, with 8,000 signers even calling on Apple to sell the old software to a third party.

Early adopters of Final Cut Pro X hoped that speedy updates from Apple would add needed additional functionality, but it now appears that the product will only be updated once or twice a year. Some functionality, like the ability to export OMF files, has come from third-party developers — and costs even more than the program itself.

Is Apple’s returning Final Cut Studio to market just a temporary stopgap, then? Or perhaps the start of a bifurcated Final Cut product line? I sincerely doubt the latter, particularly given the quiet nature of Apple’s release. So, if you need Final Cut 7, you might want to quickly buy it now, when you can. Operators are standing by.… Read the rest

FESTIVAL FILM WATCHING AND THE DEATH OF THE DVD

By Scott Macaulay

I always feel odd holed up in my hotel room watching DVDs while at a film festival. After all, a film festival is supposed to be festive, and that means audiences, excitement, buzz. But invariably, once you’ve missed a screening those DVD screeners that weren’t available pre-fest are suddenly pressed into your hands by anxious publicists. Or, maybe you just meet a cool filmmaker on the shuttle bus and agree to watch HIS short that night. If you’re doing your job as a journalist, at least some of your festival stay will be spent watching DVDs in your room, perhaps with a room service tray by your side.

While Netflix recently declared the DVD era over, the company also acknowledged that the format’s demise will take a few years. For travelers, though, DVDs may actually outlive something to watch them on. I know we don’t have to march lockstep to the directives issued by Apple’s product line, but the company does have the capability to declare EOL on features and technologies. (Remember the floppy disk, killed when Apple launched its iMac?) This time out, Apple has its sights set on the DVD. Their latest OS, Lion, is download only. (A USB drive version comes out shortly, but at a much higher price.) Their hottest laptop, the Macbook Air, contains no DVD drive at all. And then, of course, there’s the “post-PC” device, the iPad, which also relies on streaming media.

I took three business trips in the last year using the iPad only. The first trip, to CPH:DOX, was frustrating because I found it really difficult to write meaningfully on the iPad’s glass keyboard. At Sundance, I again decided to leave my laptop — an aging white Macbook — at home and travel with an iPad and Bluetooth keyboard. This combo worked fine, but the WordPress iPad was enormously frustrating. By Cannes, I had bought the iPad camera connector for photos and downloaded Blogsy, which offered a much better way to blog on the iPad. Finally, I had a lightweight mobile writing set-up with long battery life… … Read the rest

APPLE RELEASES NEW FINAL CUT PRO X; OUR REVIEW TO FOLLOW

By Scott Macaulay

UPDATE: Read David Leitner’s first take on Final Cut Pro X here.

This morning Apple released its long awaited, ground-up rethink of its professional editing software, Final Cut Pro. Available for $299 from the Apple Store, the new FCP is both drastically lower in price than the previous version and contains numerous improvements, including, wrote David Leitner at NAB this Spring, a “dramatically revamped interface, 64-bit processor capability, no more RAM ceiling of 4GB, and continual background rendering by means of unused CPU cycles.” Leitner’s takeaway then:

With FCP X, Apple is returning to the one-size-fits-all ethos of the original FCP. In other words, no more FCP Express. I think it’s revolutionary, in a democratic sense, to spend years to overhaul an epochal product to make it more powerful, more protean, yet more accessible, with the goal that my teenaged daughter and Walter Murch would both edit with the same software.

From Apple’s press release:

Apple® today announced Final Cut Pro® X, a revolutionary new version of the world’s most popular Pro video editing software which completely reinvents video editing with a Magnetic Timeline that lets you edit on a flexible, trackless canvas; Content Auto-Analysis that categorizes your content upon import by shot type, media and people; and background rendering that allows you to work without interruption. Built on a modern 64-bit architecture, Final Cut Pro X is available from the Mac® App Store™ for $299.99.

“Final Cut Pro X is the biggest advance in Pro video editing since the original Final Cut Pro,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “We have shown it to many of the world’s best Pro editors, and their jaws have dropped.”

“I’m blown away by what Apple has done with Final Cut Pro,” said Angus Wall, Academy Award-winning film editor. “Final Cut Pro X is incredibly modern and fast, but most importantly it lets you focus on telling your story in the most creative way, while it actively manages all of the technical details.”

Filmmaker was given an advance copy of the new Final Cut Pro, and Leitner … Read the rest