Category: cinema

This startup lets you make money like an Airbnb host—for screening movies

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Back in early March of 2020, Christie Marchese was feeling good. She’d just received a $100,000 investment for a new company that was set to launch that month. Her plan was to apply the Airbnb model to the movie industry and turn individuals into movie screening “hosts” who would be given the tools to organize film screenings in places like churches and community spaces. This would bring smaller, independent films to areas of the county they might not normally travel to, and also allow filmmakers and others to help build a bigger audience for a film that, say, was only destined for streaming.   “Our thought was, can you have a movie theater chain that distributes independent films, foreign-language films, to a much wider network of theaters that aren’t traditionally theaters? Where you don’t have to show a movie five times a day for three weeks to barely break even?” says Marchese, who’d already dabbled in the entertainment space as the founder and former CEO of Picture Motion, a social impact agency that builds campaigns around TV shows and films. “So can we use mixed-use spaces? And can we create a financial model that encourages entrepreneurship or that taps into that—to sound super cheesy—gig economy? Where someone could make $500 hosting a movie one night a week? That’s pretty good money.”   [Image: Kinema] Then, of course, COVID-19 hit. Suddenly a company built around in-person gatherings was an unsustainable proposition. Marchese’s dream of disrupting the movie theater business was put on hold. But rather than wait the pandemic out, she turned to her CTO, Tim Knight, and asked, “can you build a virtual cinema?”   After all, people might not be able to attend a live, screening of a film, but they could attend one digitally. Knight came up with a prototype for a digital platform with built-in, live text chat and video broadcasting capabilities so that after a film is streamed, audiences can participate in a panel discussion or virtual chat with a filmmaker Read More …

Will you go back to a movie theater for more ‘Sopranos’? This filmmaker is betting on it

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Kristian Fraga ‘s new film is nearly three hours long and mostly involves people sitting in chairs talking. But the director is convinced it’s a film that will get audiences back in theaters, where it is being shown starting on May 19.   There’s another hook too. The three-part documentary, being distributed by CineLife Entertainment, is about The Sopranos , so it’s essential viewing for fans of the seminal HBO show.   Fraga admits that to those who have no interest in Tony Soprano and his turn-of-the-century mobster malaise, Sopranos Sessions “will be like watching paint dry.” But his hope is that the film will also tap film and TV lovers interested in the craft of visual storytelling and the creative process of someone such as series creator David Chase, and that its intimate, pared-down nature will be a draw for theatergoers who have been pent up at home during COVID-19.   “I don’t have vistas or camels or spaceships,” Fraga says. “But the immediacy of the big screen and the experience of being in a theater where there are no distractions—you kind of get into the zone of the conversation.”   [Photo: CineLife Entertainment] There are many conversations. Read More …

How 9-year-old YouTube millionaire Ryan Kaji is building a kids’ media empire

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In 2015, when Ryan Kaji was three years old, he asked his parents why he wasn’t on YouTube like the other kids he was watching. Ryan’s mom, Loann, and dad, Shion, created the channel Ryan ToysReview that same year, uploading videos of Ryan opening and playing with toys and conducting at-home science experiments. Initially, they thought YouTube would be just another hobby for Ryan, like swimming or gymnastics. At the very least, it was a fun way to keep their extended families in Vietnam and Japan up-to-date on Ryan’s life in Texas. But in less than a year, Ryan ToysReview, which they later renamed Ryan’s World , was one of YouTube’s top kids’ channels. [Photo: courtesy of Ryan’s World] “We saw a tipping point of the channel very early on,” says Shion, whose family’s surname is Guan—Kaji is their stage name. “We were very confused because we were uploading the videos as a hobby, and the production value wasn’t that great either. So at first my wife and I thought maybe somebody was hacking our channel.” Today, at just nine years old, Ryan is YouTube’s highest earner (child or otherwise) for three years running, according to Forbes , pulling in an estimated $29.5 million in revenue in 202o. Ryan’s World has more than 45 million subscribers across nine channels and has generated more than 62 billion lifetime views. “It’s exciting seeing people enjoying my content and what we make,” Ryan says. Children’s content is the most viewed on YouTube and has certainly made some very young people very rich. But the platform’s evolving policies around permissible content and what can be monetized has created something of an unstable environment for creators, especially for kid-centric channels such as Ryan’s World. In 2019, Google was fined $170 million because YouTube violated the FTC’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires websites to have certain guidelines for collecting personal data from children under 13. That fine led to YouTube creating new privacy rules around videos targeted toward kids, including limiting advertising, a key revenue stream for creators. “It hit us tremendously,” Shion says. “More than half our revenue from YouTube decreased since the new regulation.” Keeping kids safe online is paramount, but critics of YouTube’s response felt it put creators on the hook for an issue the platform created in the first place. According to the complaint , YouTube touted itself as the premier destination for kids’ content but never bothered complying with COPPA. So when the FTC finally cracked down, YouTube’s efforts seemed more reactive and sweeping, impacting creators far more than a $170 million fine flicked at a company worth billions. Kidfluencer content on YouTube is also under the eye of watchdog organizations monitoring the disclosure of advertising products and services in videos aimed at kids. The group Truth in Advertising filed a complaint with the FTC against Ryan’s World in 2019 accusing the Kajis of not properly flagging branded videos Read More …

Hey, Apple, just make a TV already

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As part of its big “Spring Loaded” press event on Tuesday, Apple announced that it will fix your TV’s picture settings in one of the most roundabout ways possible. Just buy yourself an Apple TV streaming box, plug it into your existing television, then hold your iPhone up to the screen. The Apple TV will then use the phone’s image sensors to calibrate its own color output according to what Apple says are cinematographer-approved specifications. Apple showcased the feature as part of its second-generation Apple TV 4K , which launches next month, though the calibration option will also arrive on existing Apple TV boxes next week. It’s a neat idea, but it also digs up a rather old question : Why doesn’t Apple just make a smart TV itself? Read More …

Inside Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon’s alcohol- and snacks-saturated battle for Oscar buzz

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A month out from the 2021 Academy Awards telecast—which airs on April 25—the battle to win the love of Hollywood has turned into the year of the crate. Over the past few weeks, everyone from the indie studio A24 to indie stalwart Fox Searchlight (now a division within Disney) to Universal have dispatched across town crates of artisanal food to woo their way into the hearts—and stomachs—of the Hollywood press corps, the influential body of scribes who feverishly chronicle every twist and turn in the jostle leading up to the Oscars. Netflix, which leads this year’s nominations haul with a whopping 35 nominations for films, including Mank , The Trial of the Chicago 7 , and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom , has also been lavishing edible swag on reporters, but has become more known for gifting booze. To support Malcolm & Marie , a moody art film starring Zendaya and John David Washington—which looked like an early contender but ended up not nabbing any nominations—Netflix sent out bottles of top-drawer scotch. (I’m sure it didn’t go to waste.) Swag and Oscar campaigning have always gone hand in hand during awards season—the three (to six) month swirl of parties, dinners, brunches, and getaways sponsored by the studios and streamers to stir up buzz for their contenders. But in a season that has been turned on its head due to COVID-19—in-person screenings have been verboten , along with glad-handling galas—studios and screening companies have had to be more creative about how to get the word out about their films. Even the fall film festivals, such as Venice and Telluride, which are traditionally relied on to build early buzz and critical acclaim for films, went virtual in 2020, lessening their ability to fuel word of mouth and serve as showboating opportunities for stars and filmmakers. As a result, studios and streamers are coming up with new ways to transform their projects into events. Take Nomadland . The Best Picture frontrunner—it cemented this position by nabbing the top award at the Producers Guild Awards—stars Frances McDormand as a peripatetic Amazon worker who finds beauty and serenity amongst fellow RV dwellers in the American Southwest. The film premiered at festivals last fall, but when it launched on Hulu in late February and officially came out in theaters, Fox Searchlight announced a virtual global premiere. The tactic, in part, was to keep the film feeling fresh so far along in its run, and with the delayed Oscars still a ways off. (During campaign season, the fear of peaking too soon—what many believed killed A Star is Born ‘s Best Picture chances in 2019—haunts all awards publicists.) Invitees to the event were sent the aforementioned crate—stuffed with gourmet cheese, “humanly raised” salami, and trail mix—to enjoy while watching the film. This at-home viewing party atmosphere has become de rigeur this season in an attempt to replicate the feeling and fun of an Oscar screening/gala, and to elevate the living room viewing experience beyond turning on the tube in your pajamas (though you can still do that, of course). One publicist attributed the format to Netflix, which has been throwing “virtual premieres” ever since COVID-19 hit. Invitees who RSVP “yes” to a Netflix premiere see the film show up in their Netflix preview row, and are then sent popcorn or a DoorDash coupon to enjoy with the show Read More …