Hollywood has formed a new company called Movielabs to research
anti-piracy technologies. Six of the big boys — Walt Disney,
Paramount, Sony, Warner Brothers, Universal and 20th Century Fox — are
pooling $30 million to get things started. You can read more in this BBC article

Personally,
it sounds like a decent idea. At least they’re learning a thing or two
from the music industry. Of course, I’d imagine nobody expects it to
catch all piracy, but it will keep the casual folks away — like one of
my friends, who rents DVDs like crazy and copies them with AnyDVD for
his personal collection.

I don’t think it’s going to help one of
the biggest problems: Mainstream piracy in Southeast Asia. When I was
in Ho Chi Minh City, there were very few legitimate places to buy DVDs.
Pirated DVDs were $1 a disc.

Even in Bangkok, where the Thai
government has strict laws against anti-piracy and legitimate DVDs are
rather cheap, piracy was rampant. In one popular technology "mall" I
visited, half of the stores were empty places with a couple employees,
a desk, and a xeroxed catalog. You look through it, place your order,
then come back in about an hour after they retrieve  your DVDs
from some unmarked van in the parking lot. It was comical. As the
police patrolled the mall, these shops would close up in front of them
and reopen behind them.

And why wouldn’t they? They’re as hungry
for entertainment and luxury as we are, but when your average income is
less than $1,000 a year, who can afford $20 for a DVD? It seems to me
that what is needed is more SOCIAL engineering than technological.
That’s why iTunes is so successful — it’s easy, reasonable, and
actually quite fun to use. You can still easily convert your purchased
tunes into unprotected MP3 if you want to, but my guess is that your
average person doesn’t bother. 

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It’s been a month-long radio silence, but it hasn’t been without news.
Two days ago, I sent Donna three DVDs — the beta versions of all three
Artists’ Essentials DVDs. She should get them today, and she’ll be busy
all weekend viewing the footage and making notes for last-minute
changes. In the meantime, I’ll be busy gathering her pictures for the gallery feature.

This feature is one of the most special and anticipated on the DVDs.
Donna has asked her friends in the art world to donate pics of their
works. We’ve put them up in slideshow form on the Special Features
section of the DVD, along with Donna’s comments on how each work
illustrates the color concepts she is teaching in the course. Donna
believes strongly in teaching by example, and this is the sort of
enhancement that no other medium can offer.

In other news, Matt has finished a rough cut of his short, The Librarian. Here’s a look at the poster:

 

If you haven’t already, check out Matt’s link on the link section at
the bottom of this page. He’s one busy guy. After this is finished, he
plans to submit it to a few festivals and begin shooting a very brief
short.

I’ve begun writing the (hopefully) final draft of Amelia’s Ring, and
we’re still hopeful for a fall shoot. I’m getting a feel for folks
around my new town who would be interested in helping out with the
shoot. It’s a little frustrating to have to build a new cast and crew
with every project, but we’ll be sticking around here for a while, so
I’m excited about the prospects.

Oh, and be on the lookout for some new website changes. Now that it’s
been up and active for a couple years, I’m getting a better feel of
what’s lacking and what needs improvement. Stay tuned, and enjoy your
labor-day weekend!

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If you saw The Animal, A Knight’s Tale, or Hollow Man you deserve to get recompensation for the hours of your life wasted. According to this BBC article, and a host of other news sources, Sony just settled a 1.5 million dollar lawsuit because they invented movie critic David Manning of the Ridgefield Press to give enthusiastic quotes to crappy movie posters.

So head over to the settlement page and get your measly $5 back. But c’mon, really … The Animal is "another winner!"?  Heath Ledger
is "this year’s hottest new star!"? Were any of you really fooled 
by this? They admit no liability and scream "free speech," which seems
more and more like the battle cry of the desperate these days.

More
unsettling — but no less believable — is that, as part of the same
lawsuit, Sony also admitted that they used actors to portray actual
moviegoers on their TV ads for The Patriot.
You know those ads, which look like they are interviewing Joe and Judy
Schmoe as they walk out of the theater? Clever marketing — hey, even I
was fooled by that one — but they aren’t the only studio doing it.

But
we all know they don’t need to stoop to such levels anyway. There’s no
shortage of critics willing to sing the praises of every film they see.
And there’s never been any shame for the studios to splash the most
obscure quotes from the most obscure critics in big, bold letters
across their ads. Usually, the hype is inversely proportional to the
quality of the offering. 

And here’s another bit of strange news: Iron Mike Tyson has retired from boxing and wife beating to star in porn movies. When you’re hard-up for cash, you gotta sink low. And we know from court testimony that he apparently has a lot to offer.

Regarding
Iron Mike’s upcoming feature with Jenna Jameson, David Manning of the
Ridgefield Press recently said, "I give it two thumbs up!"

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