Telstra and Sky Buy Into Elemental Technologies

Streaming Media 

Two global giants take minority stakes in the software-based video processing developer as Elemental predicts a tipping point for video over IP in 2015

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-News/Telstra-and-Sky-Buy-Into-Elemental-Technologies-101235.aspx

2014 Review: Outside broadcast round-up

Broadcast

A trio of major sporting events provided opportunities to test new technologies

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/features/2014-review-outside-broadcast-round-up/5080882.article

2014 Review: Studios round-up

Broadcast 

A deluge of large-scale productions and the closure of several London studios gave a boost to alternative spaces and sites outside the capital.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/features/2014-review-studios-round-up/5080880.article

Lime in call for permanent studio facility in Liverpool

Broadcast 

Lime Pictures is leading a campaign to set up a permanent studio facility in Liverpool.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils/lime-in-call-for-permanent-studio-facility-in-liverpool/5080903.article

Advergaming

Shots

Adrian Pennington probes the space opening up between games, gamers and advertising. Taken from shots 153.

With the exponential growth of mobile digital users has come a massive rise in gamers and within that group a changing demographic that is more female, more mature and more sophisticated. For marketers this has opened up such opportunities as the wonderful world of branded gaming but, says Adrian Pennington, with an increasingly competitive playing field advertisers are having to up their game. It’s only human nature to want to have fun.

http://www.shots.net/features/article/85824/gaming-special%253A-advergaming

It’s only human nature to want to have fun. This desire surely explains the centuries old, global popularity of game playing, which has been rebooted in recent years by the ubiquity of mobile touchscreen devices.

Brands haven’t been slow to catch on, incorporating web-based games into their digital campaigns almost as a matter of course. Over time such advergames (also known as viral games, branded games, promotional or browser games) have had to become more sophisticated and of higher quality to be heard above the crowd. “Between 2000 to 2003 it seemed all I did was make some form of branded game,” says Andy Hood who leads the creative development team at AKQA. “You’d be able to get a game to go viral because there was an absence of anything else like it. Now, because of the massive rise of throwaway game apps, you’ve got so much to compete with that you have to shout out.”

Initially advergames were assumed to be best suited to products targeting young males, the mainstream console gaming demographic, with the sector dominated by games selling deodorant, action movies, beer and burgers. In 2006, Burger King’s Xbox titles were a particular high point, selling more than two million units in the month of release.

According to Richard Smith, account director at Mindshare UK and author of The Future of Gaming report, advertisers stayed away from gaming when it was mainly on consoles, “as the lead times were long and publishers weren’t interested anyway”. However, as the gaming audience has widened, so has the advergaming market, resulting in such projects as the London Science Museum Launchball physics game of 2008 [see inset] and Disney Fairies: Lost & Found of 2012. The latter is aimed at the growing market of tweenage girls – today, according to the Entertainment Software Association, 48 per cent of online gamers are now female. Both Launchball and Disney Fairies were developed by London-based game studio Preloaded. “Launchball was really our first foray into games with purpose,” says Phil Stuart, Preloaded’s creative director, “the player reception and critical success galvanized our belief in the power of games to do more than entertain.” Other Preloaded titles – Axon for the Wellcome Collection and Thingdom, also for Science Museum, were created to support real-life galleries, but exist as standalone experiences outside of the physical space. They caught the eye of Learning Technologies Group which acquired Preloaded in May to target what it expects to be a global market for simulation and games-based learning that will reach $9bn by 2017. “Advergaming has huge potential,” states Damien Roux, CEO of Edinburgh-based digital agency Drimlike. “It grabs people’s attention and engages them without the need for an obvious banner. Brands can convey messages effectively without being overly restricted. This makes standing out more achievable – regardless of the brand.” That engagement brings ancillary benefits; as another advergame specialist Koko Digital states on its website, branded games offer “a combination of brand awareness, product promotion, engagement, customer acquisition, data capture, direct sales, social likes, web traffic, and last but not least – fun!”

Millennial and mobile

Video games revenue surpassed box office, movie rentals, book and music sales in the US a decade ago but connected mobile devices have further changed the media’s advertising potential. The UK video games industry grew by four per cent in 2012 according to trade body TIGA, with an increased number of games produced for mobile and online platforms a key stimulus.

According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, increased smartphone penetration – which will reach 75 per cent of the UK population this year – combined with tablet penetration (set to hit 50 per cent by the end of 2014), contributed to a surge in mobile advertising in 2013 of 17.5 per cent year-on-year to reach just over £3bn. “Advergames may not appeal to hardcore gamers, but a millennial audience brought up on technology expects to engage with a brand in a different way and will tune out traditional forms of advertising,” says Poke founder Nick Farnhill. “Choosing a game for that audience is a smart move and putting that game on a mobile platform is smarter still.”

Smartphone and mobile devices have brought gaming to the masses, especially with the popularization of microgames, such as Candy Crush Saga. Henric Swahn, lead game designer at games studio UNIT9, speaks of the “massive audience ready to consume this content at a rapid pace. The gamification of advertising is becoming a natural language. Games retain users and can be highly cost-effective to produce compared with TVC content, and – when done well – increase brand loyalty exponentially.”

So online and mobile gaming is rife and mobile ad spend is on the up but where do the two intersect? Branded game products don’t just have to have good gameplay, they need to coordinate with the overall visual identity of the brand and communicate key aspects of its marketing drive.

Rubber ducks and wolves to lure the players in

“Using games as part of a communications strategy is stronger than it’s ever been,” says Paul Bennun, CCO at content creation company Somethin’ Else. “You have to look at games no differently from any other kind of content and as part of the overall comms strategy. We know that the value of the 30-second spot is diminished and we also know that any sort of content that doesn’t work the way the internet works becomes invisible. Games are a perfect fit for an interactive media that fits into social media allowing people to share and discover content.”

Bennun believes that a strong strategic sense of brand during the design process and during media planning is essential, but “the game has to be a good game first and foremost. It can’t be an afterthought to the comms strategy.” A good example is Somethin’ Else’s The Nightjar for Wrigley’s. “We said we’d only do it as long as we could build a game that stands on its own two feet,” says Bennun. “Games can deliver on the promise of the brand. All traditional advertising can do is talk about the promise, it cannot embody it like games can.”

Poke scored a hit with RubberDuckZilla in 2009 (building on Mother’s TV campaign for Coca-Cola brand Oasis) but is wary of clunky experiences that people play only once or twice. “What entices someone to immerse themselves in a game is so subtle and so nuanced that specialist game agencies like Playerthree are best to partner with on this type of material,” says Poke’s Farnhill. Playerthree recently released Wolfblood Shadow Runners in tandem with CBBC show Wolfblood. “It unlocks a unique story mode for the game and also story levels aligned to the show itself,” says Playerthree’s co-founder David Streek. “It may not be advertising a paid product, but it is clearly part of an acceptance from brands that games are important to their audience.”

Get the comms communicating with the content

Typically, the agency creates the concept either in addition to the campaign as a whole, or as a stand-alone creative solution to the business problem, while the lead creative works with game developers to deliver the final product. “The process requires both agency and client to be open-minded in translating the advertising message through the lens of gaming and being prepared to let the skills of a good games designer interpret the idea,” says Tom Ewart, founding partner of agency The Corner. “Advergaming’s ability to allow people to interact with, contribute to and control the dialogue is hugely appealing to a generation of consumers who experience this in other aspects of their lives, and expect the same from the brands they engage with,” he adds.

Some brands assume that they can’t work with a games studio because they already work with a media agency. “This isn’t the case,” says Drimlike’s Roux. “Media agencies should in fact work more closely with companies like us to achieve the best results for the client.” Naturally that is a view shared by other digital outfits. “Very few agencies retain teams of people who are specialised to develop games,” points out AKQA’s Hood. “The sophistication of modern games means it’s better for an agency to partner up.” Somethin’ Else’s Bennun warns that some agencies outsource a game then pass the creation off as their own. “You need an organisation that can look in two directions at once: a gaming company that understands the language of creative and media.” This is important because once you’ve built the game you have to tell people about it, to ‘shout’ amid hundreds of thousands of competing products. “You need a game that makes people want to talk about it,” he says. “You can’t design the game and not the associated media strategy at the same time, which is why social media agencies divorced from content won’t get anywhere.”

Havas Worldwide asked Somethin’ Else to devise games ideas about being a good host for whisky brand Chivas. “We could have proposed something like a dinner dash where the gameplay simulates running around a virtual house to make your guests happy, but making a game that actually made social gatherings go well seemed like a far better idea,” says Bennun. “Social gatherings are affected by our personal digital technology, so we decided to create a social game – MASHTUN – that made players look at each other rather than their devices.”

Sometimes a game just happens to be the most appropriate solution to the brief. “It can sometimes seem prudent to take an existing game and attach the entire game to the brand,” says AKQA’s Hood. “We did this with Real Racing, creating Real Racing GTI for VW in 2010 with amazing results. With this you can then get an excellent existing game, that may already have an audience, and achieve the same reach and awareness that you would otherwise have had to undertake a significant design and build task for.” An example of the latter case is AKQA’s football game StarPlayer for Heineken, which was conceived, designed and built entirely in-house. “We didn’t set out to build a game but looked at what had to be achieved for Heineken and concluded that building a game was the way to answer the brief.”

Weaving the branding into the game

Mindshare believe it’s vital to understand brands in the context of gamers, not just the games they play. Other considerations are: no interrupting – even casual gamers object to brands interrupting them – and giving consumers something, such as micropayments of in-game currency, in return for interaction. “The most successful tend to follow the rules of gaming, and naturally weave a brand or product message in, not the ones that try and behave like a traditional ad in the gaming space,” says The Corner’s Ewart.

According to the IAB’s games advertising report the ideal is to provide a clear link between the brand and the game, without interfering with player engagement. Indeed, in the best advergames, removing the branding from the game would diminish the overall gaming experience. “Stand out work will always show that a brand’s message has been understood by the agency and conveyed in the game narrative and that it is appropriate to the audience,” says Farnhill. “You also need to invest quite heavily in creating something with incredibly high production values.”

For Roux, simple, addictive games are always going to work. “But I think we’ll see serious games gaining more and more prominence. Using a serious game to convey a serious message can really help a brand or organisation to have a bigger influence on their demographic.”

State of the art in the field is The Scarecrow by Louisiana’s Moonbot Studios from a brief by CAA Marketing. Its Pixar-quality animated short for Mexican food chain Chipotle went viral on YouTube. The 10 million plus views were translated into over 530,000 downloads of an iOS arcade-style game app, also by Moonbot, delivering on the brand’s championing of responsible food production, plus, players can win restaurant coupons. “It has incredible production values,” says Farnhill. “Some users play it three to four times a week and there is so much good data Chipotle is able to draw, from email addresses to phone numbers.” Ewart says of the game: “It plays by the rules of gaming, the brand message is clear and it shows how real commitment to a genuine gaming experience and investment in quality production really pays off.”

Virtual reality could be the next big disruption in advertising, especially where advergames are concerned. Thanks to the recent partnership of Facebook’s Oculus VR with Samsung, headsets will soon be widely accessible to a large mobile market. “This is exciting because VR has the potential to create a strong emotional resonance with the user, fully immersing them in an experience that the brain perceives as reality,” says UNIT9’s Swahn. “It’s because of this physical immersion that virtual reality and wearables will become the future of advergaming.”

Drone Are Not Just For Christmas

IBC

The must-have gift for men who like gadgets this festive season (according to numerous magazine articles) is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Remote-controlled flying drones can cost as little as €60, or run up to several thousand Euros for more professional quad and octo-copters. They could soon even be delivered by drone if Amazon's tests in the East Anglian fens prove viable.

http://www.ibc.org/page.cfm/action=library/libID=2/libEntryID=262/listID=3

OTT Drives Sports Content Everywhere And Piracy

IBC

Sport is the most valuable content that the industry delivers, worth £16bn (€20bn) this year, a £2bn increase on 2013. Coupled with the proliferation in connected devices and the exponential growth in broadband speeds, by any metric - data per second, tweets per minute, app downloads - the market for multiscreen sports is growing at a phenomenal rate. 

http://www.ibc.org/page.cfm/action=library/libID=2/libEntryID=261/listID=3

SVGE Sit-Down: MD Steve Knee outlines how Cloudbass arrived in UK OB premier league

Sports Video Group
With SIS Live’s exit the roll call of British outside broadcast suppliers would appear to have been reduced to four, each with a 20-25% share. But this is an inaccurate picture...

http://svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/svge-sit-down-md-steve-knee-outlines-how-cloudbass-arrived-in-the-premier-league-of-uk-ob/

Gearhouse verdict on Hitachi SK-UHD4000

Broadcastbridge

Hitachi is one of several camera manufacturers unleashing 4K cameras with 2/3-inch B4 mounts and Gearhouse Broadcast made waves on its release at IBC2014 by announcing it would take the first 50 off the production line. Since then Gearhouse tested the camera to see how well the cameras worked in existing workflows and shares its findings with thebroadcastbridge.

https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/1011/gearhouse-verdict-on-hitachi-sk-uhd4000

SVGE Sit-Down: MD David Meynell on why SIS Live is now betting on connectivity

Sports Video Group
SIS Live is reinventing itself as a connectivity provider to UK live events and plans to double the number of stadia connected with its fibre network to 100 by 2016. 
http://svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/svge-sit-down-david-meynell-on-why-sis-live-is-now-betting-on-connectivity/

OBS TV to take on UK outside broadcast market with new 30-camera truck

Sports Video Group
OBS TV, the UK division of Irish outside broadcast and facility group Observe, is building a new 30-camera channel truck after a year of establishing its place in the marketplace.
http://svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/obs-tv-to-take-on-uk-outside-broadcast-market-with-new-30-camera-truck/

DOTS lands Hollywood studio for long term archive

BroadcastBridge

A rival to the Piql Preservation System for long term archiving of motion pictures has reportedly succeeded in getting one major studio to allocate budget for its use in 2015. Developed by Group 47, DOTS (Digital Optical Technology System) stores digital data onto metal alloy tape and is claimed to be archival for 100 years. It is non-magnetic, chemically inert, immune from electromagnetic fields including electromagnetic pulse and can be stored at room temperature.

https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/978/dots-lands-hollywood-studio-for-long-term-archive

3xScreen Media: Live Streaming Is No Longer Optional for Major Events

StreamingMedia

From the Vans x Crossfire Halloween Massacre to Ted Baker's fashion shows, the London-based streaming services provider is coming up with innovative ways to deliver live events online and compete with broadcast.

http://www.StreamingMediaGlobal.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/3xScreen-Media-Live-Streaming-Is-No-Longer-Optional-for-Major-Events-100496.aspx

Pioneering a new visual grammar in virtual reality

TVB Europe  p24
http://issuu.com/newbayeurope/docs/tvbe_november_2014_digital_edition/0

Zero tolerance comms for Riedel and F1.

TVB Europe P17

http://issuu.com/newbayeurope/docs/tvbe_november_2014_digital_edition/1 http:/

Film preservation for 500 years on film

Broadcastbridge

A new solution could have solved the riddle by storing digital files on film for up to 500 years Piql is the result of five years and €20 million R&D, supported by the EU and the Norwegian government.

https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/940/film-preservation-for-500-years-on-film

Video Platform Nideo Targets B2B

Streaming Media 

UK-based start up claims its platform, based on Microsoft Azure, offers analytics and tracking capabilities that are better suited to B2B video than YouTube, Vimeo, or Brightcove.

http://www.StreamingMediaGlobal.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Video-Platform-Nideo-Targets-B2B-100422.aspx

Bridging the ratings gap

Broadcast 

The absence of a shared multi-platform TV ratings measure breeds agency concern and tech innovation p20
http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk//launch.aspx?eid=776b74fa-cd02-44cf-a137-12f29affe183

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils/digital-edition-broadcast-tech/5079714.article#.VFzzTcZT94M.twitter

Can LTE Broadcast Solve the Spectrum Conundrum?

IBC Following a busy round of trials, LTE Broadcast networks are being rolled out on both sides of the Atlantic with potentially dramatic ramifications for the future of content distribution. http://www.ibc.org/page.cfm/Action=library/libID=2/listID=4/t=m

My interview with Michael Seresin, DP, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

British Cinematographer

http://issuu.com/open-box/docs/british_cinematographer_64

Reporting under pressure

Digital Studio 

Broadcast journalists are placed under great pressure while working in the field, sometimes in some incredibly remote and inhospitable places, but innovation in satellite and cellular connectivity is making the job of reporting a story in multiple ways to multiple outlets a much easier task.

http://www.digitalproductionme.com/article-8139-reporting-under-pressure/

Broadcast Turns Up the Heat for Online Advertising Monies

IBC Broadcasters are fighting the threat of advertising money being syphoned to the web by converging online advertising technology and techniques with mainstream TV advertising. In doing so, doing they claim to have tapped new revenue streams bolstering TV's future. http://www.ibc.org/page.cfm/action=library/libID=2/libEntryID=259/listID=4

Celebrating Panavision's 60 year history

British Cinematographer p26

http://issuu.com/open-box/docs/british_cinematographer_64

The Future of Cinema from performance capture to VR: special report

British Cinematographer- p38

http://issuu.com/open-box/docs/bc065_issuu

plus interviews with Dion Beebe, Haris Zambarloukos, Simon Duggan on the future of cinematography p38-40 

article here Past, Present & Future of Cinematography (Part 4) - British Cinematographer

Interviews with Jess Hall, Christian Berger, Phedon Papamichail & Roger Deakins on cinematography's future p27-33

- Haris Zambarloukos BSC -

 

Q: In the last 10 years what has been the biggest change for you as a cinematographer?
A: The biggest change I believe has been in the colour correction process. Nine years ago I was able to finish my first film, Enduring Love, in a DI process and since then all but two have been a DI finish. That has dramatically increased the time needed to complete the final process and has created an unavoidable dilemma: do you prefer ultimate control over the finest detail of the look of your images, or the finest possible print? A DI gives you that extra control, but nothing looks more beautiful in a cinema than a photochemically finished print – a black and white one at that.

Q: What do you feel are the biggest challenges facing cinematographers today?
A: It is the same today as it was when the first moving image was created, how to use motion picture art to create a compelling emotional experience for the audience.

Q: What are your thoughts on digital image quality vs. film?
A: I would rather sit down somewhere else... preferably with a drink.

Q: And what developments would you like to see in the future?
A: Cinematography developments have raced ahead of other areas in the film industry, to the point where we might be going backwards. Maybe we should develop appreciation and true understanding of the tools we already have.

Q: What, for you, has been the most significant development in technology or new piece of kit in the last decade?
A: The ability to scan a negative, and the idea that you could colour correct digitally has had the most profound impact on our work in a number of ways. I still love the photochemical process and I think in terms of the texture and the crispness that you still get a better print, in my opinion. But the ability to fine tune a picture at the end is just incredible. We take it for granted now that we go into a DI suite and that is how we colour correct a film. But 10 years ago that wasn’t possible.

Q: What films, or which cinematographer’s work, have you been most impressed with in the last 10 years?
A: I don’t think I’d ever seen anything like Road To Perdition (2002) (top picture) when it came out. That will take some beating. In terms of moving forward, presenting films in a certain way, the work that Wally Pfister did on The Dark Knight (2008) using IMAX and 35mm is really significant, as is all the work Anthony Dodd Mantle BSC has done mixing formats. I just loved Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and I think all of Anthony's work has such an intense energy, I find it breathtaking. I always admire what Rob Hardy BSC and Robbie Ryan BSC are doing.

 

- Mandy Walker ACS -

Q: In the last 10 years what has been the biggest change for you as a cinematographer?
A: It has to be the invention and constant upgrading of the technology of digital capture mediums and the ending of film prints and processing. When we did our pick-ups for Tracks out of Deluxe Sydney it was the last piece of film to be processed there. The camera department is now set up differently with the addition of the DIT and data wranglers. Also, the other significant change is the way images are seen on-set with better quality monitoring. This has changed the way people look at their own work in other departments on set. By seeing that what is on the modern monitors is potentially pretty close to what they will see in the end product.

Q: What do you feel are the biggest challenges facing cinematographers today?
A: To maintain the role of the cinematographer on a movie where VFX are controlling more and more the pre-visualisation, and post production of the images. I always try and set up a collaborative relationship between the with the director and myself with the VFX supervisor, so they understand the visual language that the director and I have decided on. That way, when we are finished shooting, they don't go off on their own tangent and make images that don't fit the visual style of the film. It has happened to me that at the last minute some scenes have been manipulated so much that it looks like another film. Also, those relationships are important during pre-production, and especially if the film has a lot of pre-visualisation and VFX storyboarding. Again, you don't want to be told by them what the shots are. It's an important relationship and you need to be communicative with each other at all steps of production.

Q: How do you feel digital compares to celluloid imagery and acquisition?
A: I am still using both, and I feel that film is still the best choice for some situations and digital for others. I would be sad if film went away as a choice. On Tracks, both the director, John Curran, and I were adamant that we shot on film as we felt that the many varied landscapes, weather (some harsh and some with subtle beauty), and colours could all be recorded with the best resolution and contrast range possible with negative. We were in isolated in hot dirty locations and we could always grab a camera and quickly shoot, not worrying about cables, monitors, and overheating, etc. Even though after shooting film for 25yrs, I still got a thrill watching the printed film dailies, and nearly every time it would look better than I thought, like those skies with their detail. However, I shot a TV pilot on ARRI Alexa, as the project called for large theatre and hotel lobby locations, where I used minimal lighting and embraced the available light fittings, and night urban scenes. For me that camera worked really well in those low-light situations and had more detail in the shadows than film.

Q: What developments would you like to see in the future?
A: That digital capture does not go down the path of some of the latest television sets, in that the manufacturers think sharper and less motion blur means better images. I'm always using older lenses and trying to not have a super sharp image on digital as it can look like reality TV and not drama. I would like the camera manufacturers to make the images have more colour resolution and handle larger contrast extremes, especially in the highlights. Just because a camera has more than 4K resolution, it doesn't necessarily mean a better image. I'm not after sharper images ­­­– it can become a harsh look on an actor’s skin, showing every wrinkle and pore.

Q: What has been the most significant technological development in the last 10 years?
A: The technology to do on-set looks and grading of your dailies. I find shooting digital can be a positive experience, when you have your LUT on-set and can show the director pretty much how the end result will look. Then you can light to that image and control things in the image that previously one couldn't do until later on in post.

Q: What films, or which cinematographer’s work, have you been most impressed with in the last 10 years?
A: All of the films shot by Roger Deakins. His work is always faithful to translating a particular script to the screen, and to visually expressing the story to an audience. The decisions he makes for camera moves and lighting are never unnecessarily showy and don't take away from the focus of the storytelling. I also love the work of Emmanuel Lubezki. He has taken chances in his work, such as in The Tree Of Life (2011), that are not conventionally technical in their coverage and lighting, but are so perfect in conveying the emotions of the characters and the story. Plus the innovative way he has shot films such as Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events on stage (2004), and Gravity (2013) with his use of the huge LED panels. He is truly a groundbreaker, and one with great taste.

- Dion Beebe ACS ASC -

Q: In the last 10 years what has been the biggest change for you as a cinematographer?
A: It is ten years now since I first picked up a digital camera on the movie Collateral. It was like a mass of cables with a lens attached. An umbilical cord connected it to a huge mothership the size of an industrial freezer. One had to be careful not to touch the menu button unless you had some sort of degree. But the first time I saw palm trees silhouetted against the LA night sky, and freeways captured beneath the sodium glare of streetlights, I realised digital photography was about to change the way we shoot movies.

Q: What do you feel are the biggest challenges facing cinematographers today?
A: Cinematographers have always been required to stay abreast of changing technologies. However, the past 10 years has seen such enormous changes that it is important not just to know what is out there, but to also try and be comfortable with the technology. These are not just changes to cameras but to lighting choices, colour timing tools and visual FX procedures too. Staying current in the industry is certainly one of the challenges we face and also one that keeps what we do exciting.

Q: How do you feel digital compares to celluloid imagery and acquisition?
A: It is important to regard each format as unique. That one captures light via electronic data and the other through a photochemical process clearly demonstrates this distinction. I also believe each has its own unique aesthetic. Film aesthetic is something we immediately recognise and has its origins deep within the films captured on celluloid for over 100 years. Its look lies within the grain, texture and contrast of film and the reaction of light on the negative. On the other hand digital image capture has its own, and still evolving, aesthetic. And with it has evolved a lighting style that is unique to the digital format. If I were to describe this it would be an ambient lighting style. The digital cinematographer must look to build contrast and depth into an existing ambient base light and find a way to integrate it seamlessly. There is a soft, open look that emerges from this that I feel is unique to this format.

Q: What has been the most significant technological development in the last 10 years?
A: The digital sensor.

Q: What developments would you like to see in the future?
A: I'd like to see the continuing development of film negative. Film is a unique storytelling tool. Let's not lose that

 

Google Glass and the Future of Second Screening and TV News

Streaming Media

Beginning next week CNN is to expand its Google Glass experiment by integrating citizen journalist service iReport with its existing Google Glass News Alerts. In Europe, TDF Media Services sees potential in the device for second second TV apps.

http://www.streamingmediaglobal.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Google-Glass-and-the-Future-of-Second-Screening-and-TV-News-93005.aspx

BSkyB Funds Whistle Sport, Its Latest Video Start-Up Investment

Streaming Media

The U.K. pay TV operator has made serial investments in several young online video companies to safeguard its future. Here's a look at BSkyB's start-up portfolio.

http://www.StreamingMediaGlobal.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/BSkyB-Funds-Whistle-Sport-Its-Latest-Video-Start-Up-Investment-100260.aspx

Blurring the real and the virtual live

Broadcastbridge

The capture of depth information in scenes is an increasingly rich field of development but it has so far remained on the fringes of TV production because of the need to either use physical markers on objects or to render the output in post. Start-up company Zinemath aims to change that with a technology called zLense it claims to be the first real-time 3D depth mapping tool for broadcast.

https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/860/blurring-the-real-and-the-virtual-live

When IT meets post

Broadcast 

Information technology (IT) is fast becoming the industry’s technical backbone, as the storing, processing and sharing of data using computers and computer networks pervades set-to-screen workflows.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/in-depth/when-it-meets-post/5062806.article

Camcorders get cloud streaming capability

Broadcastbridge

The IP wave has broken on the shores of wireless connectivity as several pro-camcorder manufacturers announce cloud-integration capability removing the need for traditional video uplink. 

https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/875/camcorders-cloud-streaming

Virtual realities: the transition of playout technologies

Digital TV Europe

Software virtualised on standard platforms promises to revolutionise the cost and agility of broadcast operations, but the transition is not without difficulty. 

http://www.digitaltveurope.net/262961/virtual-realities-the-transition-of-playout-technologies/

Virtualised Infrastructure has a Legacy to Match

IBC

Playout automation touches every area of a broadcast or video service distribution facility yet the time is drawing near when it will run on virtual machines in a datacentre or in a public cloud over IP network.

http://www.ibc.org/page.cfm/action=library/libID=2/libEntryID=257/listID=4

4K acquisition review IBC2014

TVB Europe p32 

Debate about the mertis of phase 1 or 2 UHDTV aside, producers have a wealth of options to shoot 4K.

http://issuu.com/newbayeurope/docs/tvbe_october_2014_digital_edition/0

Accelerator to the Floor

RTS Television

IBC2014 review: Some television companies are still in denial about the tech tsunami washing over all areas of TV.

http://www.rts.org.uk/magazine/article/accelerator-floor

Stable Foundations for AV Technology

AV Magazine p20

Mass construction for sports events, government decentralisation and theme parks are fuelling an AV boom in S Korea.

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/a8a0a7ab#/a8a0a7ab/21

PayTV Leaders Launch Charge Ahead of Analogue Switch-off

IBC
The impending 2015 deadline for the switching off of analogue TV signals is focussing minds in the MENA where there is a renewed sense of urgency about the challenges and opportunities the development presents.

http://www.ibcce.org/page.cfm/action=library/libID=2/libEntryID=180/listID=1

Corrie: A New Lease Of Life

TVB Europe p15

Visit to the hallowed cobbles of Corrie to see ITV's new post & grading workflow.

http://issuu.com/newbayeurope/docs/tvbe_october_2014_digital_edition/0

Wearable Tech for Brands

Shots

Wearables promise real-time brand engagement in a world where the virtual connects with the actual via a network that encompasses everyday objects, our personal devices and our minds. It’s all a matter of how to use the data, but as Adrian Pennington learns, with great power comes great responsibility.

http://www.shots.net/features/article/85271/shots-tech%253A-wearable-tech

In his 2013 novel The Circle, author Dave Eggers depicts a not-too-distant future in which a tech giant monopolises computing, from search to social networks, and accesses every digital beat of millions of people’s lives. ‘The Circle’ believes it is a democratising force unlocking creativity and freedom of choice, but when personal lives are broadcast online Truman Show-style, when private actions are policed by public forums, and where no record is erased, its totalitarian surveillance is unambiguously Orwellian.

Eggers’ book touches on a question much debated within Silicon Valley: who owns our personal data and what should be done with it, as more and more is collected from the micro-computers that are set to pervade our lives? In Eggers’ scenario, too much data in the wrong hands closes off choice and harms our wellbeing. It’s aimed at Amazon, Google, Facebook and others who contend that data can be farmed, curated then targeted to benefit an individual’s existence, rather than benefiting the corporation.

That sense of life enhancement from product is of course the same trick that advertising tries to pull off and it’s why there’s considerable buzz around wearables, even if the jury is out on exactly what its communications potential is. “Wearables are still in digital snake-oil territory,” says Aaron Martin, head of strategic services at digital communications agency Collective London. “They have massive potential but brands are in the phase of doing things for the sake of it, rather than for the benefit of consumers. We’re asking consumers to adapt their behaviour to technology rather than respecting human behaviour and getting technology to adapt.” Wearables are different to previous mobile technologies because they give us access to information about our physical bodies and the physical environment we inhabit in real-time. As Evangeline Marzec – now co-founder of a wearable tech startup and until recently the mobile strategy specialist at Deloitte Digital – observed in her blog, wearables’ primary purpose “is to support immediate, real-world actions by providing relevant, contextual information precisely at the point of decision-making.” An example: the use of GPS tracking software in pro sports kicked off with sabermetrics, in which statistical data of baseball players’ performance is gathered and analysed – it was famously used by baseball team Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane (immortalised in the film Moneyball). The next stage saw the British and Irish Lions rugby team have sensors stitched into players’ jerseys to help managers analyse team performance and to make decisions on replacements in real time.

Let your glasses tell you what to eat

It is the contextual awareness offered by light and temperature sensors, magnetometers, gyroscopes, barometers, altimeters and accelerometers, sensors for geolocation, electrodermal (skin) response, security or health biometrics that gives “brands an opportunity to truly integrate into every facet of life and deliver high value interactions,” enthuses Scott Amyx, founder and CEO of wearables digital agency Amyx+McKinsey.

Brands can insert themselves in infinitesimal non-invasive ways into our lives. Heartbeat monitoring via wristbands may trigger dietary suggestions to your Google Glass; Microsoft’s Septimu earbuds can monitor wearers’ moods by measuring heart rate, temperature and biorhythms and, together with the app Musical Heart, choose the best type of music to play to them. Ben Jones, chief technology officer at AKQA classifies wearables as a separate communications channel and says the key is to marry utility and message. AKQA’s work includes designing the fabled immersive Oculus Rift world for Nissan and it’s the lead digital agency for wristband micropayment device Barclaycard bPay: “We are giving the bank’s customers the chance to simplify their lives in an immediate, relevant and positive manner,” he says.

Brands who’ve entered into the wearables space are doing so, by and large, for the prestige of association. Media players from ELLE magazine to The New York Times, for example, piled into Glasswear apps. There’s no harm in doing so, especially if treated as experimentation. CNN, for example, is exploring whether Glass enables reporters to broadcast live from the field, and down the line, whether multiple Glass-captured recordings of an event can be united to provide a new panoramic perspective on what actually happened.

The apparent popularity of devices like fitness bands Jawbone UP and Nike+ FuelBand, smartwatches Galaxy Gear and Pebble and smartglasses from Vuzix, Google and Epson (Moverio) prompt wild speculation as to the market’s worth. Researcher Visiongain estimates the sector is worth $5.24bn this year, while analysts forecasting 2018 figures range from Juniper Research predicting a global market of $19bn and IHS predict a whopping $30bn on annual sales of more than 180 million devices. The truth is, this is such a nascent market that no one knows how big it may become. Nonetheless, any of those stats are remarkable enough for a fledgling consumer electronics category, until you contrast it with smartphones, of which we will buy 2.3 billion worldwide in 2018, according to IDC. Wearable-tech is tiny. So why all the attention?

“It feels like [wearables] should be important even if nobody’s figured out the killer app,” says Mark Avnet, dean of digital agency 360i’s education hub. He feels that genuine wearables, like haptic sensors embedded in jewellery or clothing will provide a more seamless and fruitful set of interactions. “We sweat into them, we customise them,” he says. “There’s a physical intimacy to wearing them that feels real in an age of abstraction. It’s personal, although its potential is not yet realised.” Examples of the more intimate nature of wearables include the T.Jacket, which enables parents to ‘hug’ their kids via mobile devices; the Tactilu bracelet that responds to and delivers touch remotely and Fundawear, developed for Durex, via which lovers can phone in their foreplay by controlling their partner’s underwear long distance.

A more cerebral application, the Neurocam by Neurowear offers a wearable camera system that hooks a brainwave detecting headset to an iPhone to identify what the wearer is interested in and automatically records and saves the footage in five-second GIF clips. One implication of this, according to researchers PSFK, could be the creation of ‘highlight reels’ from a day or social event. Another, in a decade or so, could be the cataloguing of entire personal experiences to a ‘memory cloud’.

The focus is already switching from hardware to software and the glue that unites these wearables together. It’s one reason why Nike and lark, which manufactures activity trackers, recently ditched their wearable hardware-making divisions to focus on researching and developing software that other hardware makers can integrate into their own wearables. “Over time we’ll see single-purpose devices such as sensor bands give way to multi-purpose Swiss Army Knife-style devices,” says Amyx. “Hardware will consolidate.”

AKQA created NikeFuel Guides for FuelBands and is now helping the sports brand redesign its API [application programming interface]. “The future is one of integration,” says AKQA’s Jones. “It’s about making sure that wearable devices connect seamlessly.” Promising far more innovation and potential than the individual devices themselves, adds Amyx, “are the value-added services that can be wrapped around them.”

Building the brave new world of the ecosystem

If you Google ‘wearables’ and ‘brand communication’ your search will return the keyword ‘ecosystem’ with a frequency too high to be ignored. Often a vacuous piece of marketeering, the word ‘ecosystem’ has come into its own as the best way to sum up the power of data aggregated from a number of wearable sources. “The success of wearables will not hinge on the hardware alone,” writes Julie Ask, Forrester analyst and co-author of the book The Mobile Mind Shift. “Success will hinge on the associated mobile apps and how effective they are in changing behaviour.” While consultant Mark Brill, blogging for content agency River, says the growth of the technology “will lead to a unique personal ecosystem consisting of different sets of wearable and connected devices. Today’s branded content is largely thought of as content delivered through screens. In the future we’ll need to think of content not just in terms of viewing but also in terms of hearing, feeling and touching.”

Wearables fits into the massive economic and cultural transformation driven by digital, a trend that BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith put succinctly in an interview with The New York Times: “Technology isn’t a section in the newspaper any more. It’s the culture.”

So what does this mean for brands? It’s clear that traditional advertising methods aren’t going to work for wearables. In fact, Google has already vetoed advertising on Glass in its developer guidelines. Carl Panczak, CEO of digital agency Reactive New York, says that for advertising to work on wearables it needs to harness the key elements of context, location and personalisation. Brands wanting to take advantage of these new devices need to figure out a way to integrate themselves as services, become an indispensible part of the wearable experience and thereby build a valuable relationship with the wearer. “Current ads on mobile devices are frankly irrelevant and annoying,” agrees Amyx. “You cannot transplant a piece of creative onto a wearable like a smartwatch by simply making the format smaller. With wearables, context makes all the difference. Wearables can handle something that smartphones cannot, namely a constant interaction between the computer and user that enables ambient intelligence, ubiquitous computing and biometric data tracking. This creates a unique opportunity for brands to participate in a new dimension of brand engagement. As recommendations become more relevant and on target, the premise of advertising takes on an entirely different dimension as users will come to see value in information personalised for them.”

This is not possible with devices in isolation but is becoming possible as sensors connect with each other – so called machine-to-machine communication. When you couple personalised data to environmental data you create a powerful wireless sensor network which can be used “to assemble a holistic picture about the quantified self,” concludes Amyx.

Homo sapiens outnumbered, mobile devices rule

The startling statistic which we should be taking note of is not the figure for wearable sales but the unfathomably vast value for the internet of things (IoT), the global network set to unify consumers with inanimate objects via the web. Network manufacturer Cisco charts the IoT as a $19trillion opportunity for the world’s economies over the next decade, noting that by next year the number of mobile devices on the planet will be greater than the total population. Agencies who aren’t already involved in the heavy lifting of big data will be left behind, notes Amyx, although the volume of data and the collection itself is less important than knowing how to read it and apply it. Statistical pattern recognition and building decision trees are two of many routes to actionable insight. “You need algorithm developers, computer programs, data scientists, specialists in machine learning who understand how to aggregate the right sources of raw data,” agrees AKQA’S Jones. “The level of insight you can garner changes products and creates new product and experience flows.” An example of machine-to-machine interaction has been explored by Collective London, who turned startup founder Sarah Buggle’s idea for an audio flyer into reality. The BUGGLE app allows the user to listen to live music being played at clubs and bars nearby – in real time – to inform their choice about where to go.

According to Amyx, app designers can no longer assume that the de facto user experience starts with a user turning on an app and then proceeding through a pre-defined user interface workflow. “Rather than requiring input from users, wearable apps will deliver high-value information in snippets as you go about your day. It will always be on in the background, listening and making sense of your context and activities,” he says. “What excites me about this is real-time brand engagement.”

Amyx+McKinsey partnered with Coke on its 2013 Ahh Effect campaign in which YouTube artist Kurt Hugo Schneider used the drink bottles to perform musical percussion. A select group of home viewers with biometric bracelets agreed to share their responses with Coke so that the brand could learn – by tracking heartbeat and body rhythm – how the spot could heighten the watcher’s happiness, leaving participants with ‘post-brand goodwill’.

Another Amyx+McKinsey project saw Korean automotive brand Kia give every visitor to a motor show a sensor-laden band to measure their reactions to different car models as they walked around. Gyroscopes tracked body and head movement, pulse rates were assessed, temperatures gauged. The feedback will be used to inform future marketing decisions. “With geo and vertical location sensors we can pinpoint consumers in retail malls relative to different shops, and within shops to different display areas,” says Amyx. “There’s a tremendous amount of user information we can capture. We can quantify a user’s reaction to brands. Their respiratory rate, facial gestures or even gasps or sighs provide clues to their emotional state.” In return, the consumer receives instore deals on their smartglasses, or instructional videos on how to use a product. If they express an interest in a product, they could get help in finding the right one via live chat with a virtual store guide. Based on eye-tracking movements and length of gaze at a particular fashion item, product highlights might appear in their field of vision. “At no point, did the consumer have to stop to pull out a smartphone and launch an app,” notes Amyx. The information is granular and intimate, as if neurochemicals such as serotonin, adrenaline, dopamine and oxytocin had been measured to assess degrees of happiness. “Brands could know more about an individual than they do themselves,” says Amyx. “Not everybody is self-aware.”

Methods of analysing big data range from a branch of mathematics called Monte Carlo simulation – a computerised mathematical technique that lets you see all the possible outcomes of a decision and assess the impact of risk – to off-the-shelf tools, such as Google BigQuery and Apache Hadoop. Consumer electronics vendors are developing their own tools. The Samsung Architecture Multimodal Interactions (SAMI) platform aggregates health data from Samsung (Simband) and non-Samsung sensors to give developers API access to granular sensor data to run analytics.

Meanwhile, Amyx+McKinsey is collaborating with “one of the world’s largest agencies” to develop a networked approach to employing real-time brand engagement. Obtaining the data presupposes either a mass invasion of privacy or mass consent. The media industry is not alone in grappling with this issue, for which there are few regulations. On the one hand, fears bordering on paranoia about the slippery slope to Orwell’s 1984 (see NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s opinion on the right of states to own our private digital activity for supposed national security); on the other hand the IoT could be represented by the type of benevolent, omnipresent OS with which we may fall in love (see the Spike Jonze film Her). “I think this is just the start of something pretty amazing – and scary too,” says AKQA’s Jones. “It has the potential to be Big Brother, knowing my location, my movement, how caffeinated I am. The point is to combine this insight with services the customer finds useful. If, for example, I am too highly caffeinated, perhaps I could use advice on maintaining regular sleep patterns.” We are prepared to give up our data if we receive value in return. “There has to be an exchange of function and features,” says Chris Matlub, founder and director of digital design agency 5K, which devised the VELA app for sailing enthusiasts wearing sports-oriented smart headgear ReconJet. “Maybe I give someone an application for specific use of a smartwatch and in return I collect data about how they interact with the world. It is up to the agency to go beyond the gimmick and understand how they can make it useful to the consumer.”

“The watch-out for agencies and brands is to be respectful of data,” warns Collective’s Martin. “This is more important when we start reading people’s biometrics. One issue is security. Already, smart connected cars have been hacked causing erratic braking and accelerating. Another issue is respecting unwritten agreements. It’s not unfeasible to think that [a company] might brand a product that monitors your health and if your blood pressure is high then the brand responds with alerts/advice. That’s fine until your health insurance premium goes up. It’s not the contract you agreed to but it’s what we are sleepwalking into.” Stanford School of Engineering’s MobiSocial Lab is seeking to combat such misuse by giving individuals back control of their personal data. Its communications platform Omlet is an open standard social network that lets users store and own all their data in a cloud.

Getting connected while still looking cool

Moving from data ethics to design, another facet of wearable tech is how it will develop physically. “The next step is about breaking through the screen,” says Matt Pollitt, co-founder of 5K. “At the moment we all interact with mobile devices via a piece of glass. It has created a digital barrier. Nobody looks up from their mobiles to go face-to-face. Exciting new experiences will happen when we can interact with the connected world unobtrusively by looking and behaving as normal.” Wearable tech is considered a clunky stopgap en route to an ecosystem that truly does hook us up to ‘the Matrix’. Today’s rudimentary plastic bands and self-conscious smartwear will become obsolete, replaced by nanomaterials and nanosensors that can tap our brain activity and are carried in clothing or in accessories, such as handbags. It will be a system that taps our neural network. “Until we can embed technology into our brains, our mobile device is the next best thing we have to sync our connected selves with our wearable technologies,” writes Matt Doherty, associate director of creative and global strategy at OgilvyOne Worldwide.

Brain machine interfaces have been around for a while, but they are now at workable level for brand experimentation. At tech expo SXSW this year, 360i devised a game, Think Flatizza, to launch a new flatbread/pizza product from food chain Subway. It used EEG-reading headsets to measure brainwave activity via electrodes to the temple. “Players were asked to focus on images of the Flatizza on a monitor that pitted one person’s mind against another in a virtual tug-of-war in a bid to win a meal by thinking happy Flatizza thoughts.” explains 360i’s Avnet. “We had people staring at the new product for 10 minutes at time.” Other examples include NuWave glasses, which help to amplify sound for the hearing impaired by transforming sound waves into vibrations; beauty tech designer Katia Vega has prototyped make-up products (false eyelashes, conductive eyeshadow) incorporating low-voltage circuitry to detect when someone winks and convert the action into a communication with other devices; Shoreditch design studio This Place has programmed MindRDR, a Google Glass app that translates brain activity readings, collected by the NeuroSky headset, into commands to take photographs via Glass with just a few moments’ concentration, bypassing the need to vocalise a command. This could help ameliorate the slightly uncool element of some wearables. “Social norms drive our behaviour in public spaces, which is why Google Glass wearing jars with what we consider to be socially acceptable,” says Collective’s Martin. “The current generation of wearables is struggling to catch-on partly because the products lack intuitive control. Telekinesis is most useful in controlling devices without us having to do anything abnormal.”

Is telly controlling your mind? Or vice versa

Google is already taking the considerable learning it has collected about user behaviour from Glass and porting into interactive contact lenses, on which it has taken out a patent. “We can already use emotional analytics of a person’s verbal and non-verbal communication to understand their mood or attitude,” says Jones. “Telepathy is the next stage of that, where we can truly understand thought and instruct things to happen.”

At electronics fest CES this year, TV data analytics specialist Rovi demonstrated how viewers could tune into a channel using just their brain and a blink of the eye. Mind-control telly is but the first application. Just think what might happen if Netflix, say, knew what you were looking for and what reaction you gave to new content. Content could be commissioned or decommissioned on the basis of that accumulated knowledge. Movies might be re-edited according to real-time feedback from trailers. The idea is already being explored by Technicolor. “This is the future of recommendation,” explained Philippe Guillotel, co-leader of Technicolor’s Open Research Group. “We are detecting your emotions from biological signals; it’s the same principle as lie detectors. In ten years there could be sensors on your TV that will propose relevant content to you according to your emotional state.”

Amyx believes that over time we will experience augmented reality [via Glass, contact lens or some yet to be invented media] on a daily basis. “As you go about your day the information received from the environment around you will be overlaid with a digital virtual world. Rather than having to invest in a large billboard, brands can deliver the same set of messages in a more customised manner and within that person’s field of view.” This represents a huge brand opportunity and a power that must be used wisely.