When It’s All an Action Sequence: Editing “John Wick Chapter 4”

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With John Wick 2 and 3 editor Evan Schiff unavailable, franchise director and co-creator Chad Stahelski cast around for a new cutting room collaborator for Chapter 4. He alighted on Nathan Orloff (Ghostbusters: Afterlife), in part because Orloff had limited experience editing action movies.

“In my interview with Chad, we just really hit it off,” Orloff explains on the Next Best Picture podcast. “I found out many months later that one of the reasons he wanted to bring me on is because I don’t have extensive experience in action. He didn’t want someone to come in and do their thing that they’ve been doing on other action movies… because John Wick is sort of antithetical to how a lot of action movies are cut these days.”

To understand why, you have to appreciate that Stahelski’s vision for the fourth installment in the franchise was to expand the John Wick universe by bringing in multiple storylines and a longer run-time to let the action play out on screen, rather than having the editing dictate the action.

“The other films are very much like, you know, that John is on a direct rampage or running for his life. This film was intentionally designed to be more reflective and contemplating, that after his entire career as a hitman, he is forced to reckon with his past and what he’s done.”

Stahelski’s influences range from the lush visuals of Wong Kar-wei to the operatic staging of Sergio Leone westerns. As the director explained to Jim Hemphill at IndieWire: “I love the seventies movie style. I love four act operas. I love Kabuki theater. The Asian cinema kind of breaks a lot of rules that we adhere to in the three act version [of movies] and we’d like to think John Wick breaks a lot of those rules because we do go a little operatic.

“Lawrence of Arabia is a good example like that. That movie kind of flies by to me and it doesn’t feel like you need an intermission in it.”

The filmmaker’s homage goes so far as to mimic the famous “match cut” by editor Ann V Coates in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia in which Lawrence in profile blows out a match and Coates cuts to a blazing desert sunrise.

“I remember vividly when I went to set in Paris, Chad asked me ‘what’s the most famous cut in all of cinema?’ and said we’re going to do it our way,” Orloff relates to Next Best Picture. “I wanted to make sure we did the exact number of frames when the fire was blown out before cutting to the sunrise. You know, I wanted to do it justice.

“He told me he’d rather swing and miss than do the same thing over again. And so that match cut is indicative of [telling the] audience what we’re going for.”

Another acknowledged influence on the director’s action style are classic MGM musicals or those featuring Fred Astaire. In films like Singing In The Rain or Top Hat the camera stays generally static and in wide shot with minimal edits so the viewer can take in all the dancing brilliance performed by the film’s stars.

“I love Bob Fosse here, one of my huge inspirations,” Stahelski tells Indiewire. “You take Gene Kelly, the old Sunday Morning Sunday Parade or something like that. You watch Fred Astaire do his thing. And if you watch the way we shoot, it’s very simple. The way we train people [to perform stunts] is very, very, very dance oriented.”

Orloff elaborates on what this means to decisions in the cutting room.

“Musicals like back then were sort of like you edited around the dancing,” he says on an episode of The Rough Cut podcast. “You showed them dancing. They would do a move, finish, cut, start something else. And the way Chad talked about that really inspired me to do that with our characters and not use the editing to try to punch anything up.”

There are times when the stunt performance or that of Keanu Reeves aren’t quite perfect “they slip or there’s something not great about the timing of this or that, but not being so obsessive about perfection makes it just so much more real. When you’re cutting less, you’re able to absorb everything more. You feel more empathy for the characters because you feel like you’re just there.”

John Wick: Chapter 4 clocks in at 169 minutes, more than an hour longer than the original. Stahelski explains why he wanted a movie of this length.

“In our heads we knew that we wanted to show this constant decreasing circle that spirals closer and closer as [the stories] come together. So every act brings us closer together. That was the plan. It sounds like a very genius plan, but you don’t know until you cut the whole thing together. Our first cut was 3 hours 45 minutes.”

So how did the edit team set about cutting that down, and knowing which killing to leave in or excise?

“When you have 14 action sequences, you can’t just edit that sequence,” the director explained. “You’ll never know if a five minute car scene or a ten minute car scene is good to watch in the two and a half hour movie.

So the only way to truly know that you’re doing the right thing is step back and take that half day. We’d edit all morning but by four p.m. we’re like, Let’s watch the movie. And my editorial staff probably hates me. We’ve watched it so many times because literally even if we just took like 30 seconds out of something, I’d make everybody watch the movie again, because that’s the only way you know, you have the right pace.

He adds, “It’s the whole song that makes you rock out. I think that was a big learning experience with me and my editorial team to constantly watch a two and five hour movie and feel where the slow parts were and to work on those parts.”

Because John Wick is dispatching henchmen left and right in intricately planned and executed stunts, making the decision about what to cut was a tricky one admits the editor.

“There is definitely sometimes overkill when something is too similar to something else,” Orloff told Next Best Picture, “but going back to the music was a huge help in creating different tones and alternating what we were doing to avoid the things feeling the same. And to Chad’s credit, especially in the last act when we go from street fight to a car chase to a lengthy overhead shot that, even though the audience has watched non-stop action for 30-45 minutes the movie is structured so skillfully that you’re seeing something you’ve never seen before.”

 

Race for Space: One Giant Leap for Entertainment

IBC

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Firing William Shatner into space was just the curtain raiser to a new era of shooting stars in orbit, as the race for extra-terrestrial entertainment takes off.

Gravity-defying science-fiction movies need no longer be propelled by CGI as extraordinary space odysseys of filmed entertainment take-off. Enterprising projects already announced for galactic production range from a Tom Cruise blockbuster to a mixed martial arts reality TV show.

Some media projects have been actively backed by NASA while US tech entrepreneurs are eager to budget films that boost their egos further into orbit.

There’s a wider commercial imperative too. The race to land valuable contracts to build orbital space stations was kicked off when NASA and Roscosmos declared the International Space Station will be decommissioned in 2030 after three decades of service, leaving the path clear for private enterprise.

Blue Origin’s description of its planned station Orbital Reef as an “off-world mixed use business park” is a blueprint that most ventures seem to follow.

Alongside film and TV productions, tourism, sports and celebrity events in space are destined to drive revenue and publicity within the next few years. Yet the first crop of shot in space projects are not just designed as marketing vehicles, in spite of the significant challenges that content creation in space brings with it.

“Of course, filming in space comes with its challenges, from radiation exposure to microgravity, equipment malfunctions, and space debris,” said John Lewis, VP & Managing Partner of Space 11 Corp and the man behind Galactic Combat. “But with proper training and qualified experts, these risks can be mitigated. However, the biggest obstacle to filming in space is the cost. The transportation alone is more expensive than any Marvel movie budget, making it a tough sell for studios.”

As space travel increases the cost of each launch will diminish raising the prospect of shows shot in space becoming just as regular as any shot terra firma. Next stop, the lunar surface.

“From someone who has been in the space business for 30 years I’ve never seen this amount of activity and new blood,” said Robert Feierbach, former SpaceX executive and Exec Producer of planned space film Helios. “There are hundreds of companies growing the industry from U$400 billion to north of a trillion dollars in the next ten years.”

Specifically, he points to the burgeoning economy of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) systems “which have made it cheaper to access space.”

Casting ahead, he thinks shooting on the moon eminently possible. “With the amount of companies and investment going in it is absolutely feasible to think that in 20 years we’ll be on the moon. In fact, multiple companies and nations will be too.”

Race for Space: Cruise boldly goes

Tom Cruise’s latest daredevil stunt was to ride a motorbike off a mountain in Norway and parachute Bond-style for Mission Impossible 7. He plans to top this by not just filming in space but making a spacewalk too. Details on the production were tantalising but scant when news first broke in 2020 and remain so. Director Doug Liman is reportedly still attached to the project along with studio Universal and the actor would ride to space in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule.

It is being co-produced by UK-based Space Entertainment Enterprise (SEE) which has separately announced plans to build and launch a movie production studio which will connect with the ISS. It has tasked Houston-based Axiom Space to build it.

In a statement, SEE states that the SEE-1 module is “intended to host films, television, music and sports events as well as artists, producers and creatives who want to make content in the low orbit, microgravity environment. The facilities will enable development, production, recording, broadcasting and livestreaming of content.” The company says it will produce its own content and events in the module and also make it available for hire.

December 2024 is the planned completion date for SEE-1 which would later dock with Axiom Station, the commercial wing of the ISS.

SEE has heavyweight media credentials - SEE’s chief operating officer is ex-Endemol Shine UK CEO Richard Johnston, while Mark Taffet, former SVP of sports and pay per view at HBO, and ex-Viacom technology VP Remi Abayomi are also onboard.

“SEE-1 will provide a unique and accessible home for boundless entertainment possibilities in a venue packed with innovative infrastructure that will unleash a new world of creativity,” the statement continued.

SEE-1 will provide “a supreme-quality space structure enabling the expansion of the two trillion-dollar global entertainment industry into low-Earth orbit.”

Unsurprisingly, the cost of filming in space is astronomical. The Cruise movie was reportedly budgeted around $200m. Estimates from 2018 put the cost per kilogram using the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at $2,720. Then there’s the cost of staying up there, which can range anywhere from between $88,000 to $164,000 per person per day.

Put another way, just one seat on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is thought to run around $55 million, according to The Verge, plus NASA charges additional fees for private astronauts using the space station’s facilities while in orbit.

Race for Space: Helios

A rival feature underwritten by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin is being developed by US production company Centerboro Productions. Blue Origin and Sierra Space are building the LEO space station Orbital Reef which will be one of the stars of sci-fi thriller Helios, according to Centerboro President Patricia Beninati.

“This will be the first film to show what living in space will be like for real in 2030,” she told IBC365. “This is not CGI. This is the real deal.”

The story is about a rescue mission to save humanity when the world’s electricity is knocked out by solar flare – a scenario that is very much in the realm of fact. “Think Gerard Butler of Geostorm crossed with Jodie Foster of Contact – that’s the high-level pitch,” she said.

Beninati said the film has the backing of NASA, Space Florida and the US Space Force and that the film will feature their logos, their hardware and their expertise. Astronauts including former ISS commander Garrett Riesman have advised on the script as has Feierbach.

“We’re not just bringing them in to bring the money,” she said. “The aim is total authenticity and to spread the word in the STEM community that we are supporting space for all. That is our mission.”

Yet there is some smoke and mirrors here. The film, which is in development, is destined for release long before 2030. Footage was planned to be shot aboard a suborbital aircraft but when that company went bust this idea also bit the dust. Consequently, Helios will be shot in some real interiors (or mock-ups) of some genuine space-bound craft but not in actual space. Ground based locations are planned in New Mexico.

“You will see some very heavy promotion of Helios around Blue Origin launches,” Beninati promised. She also hinted at a first look deal with Amazon but that no distribution for the project has been signed. You can’t deny her enthusiasm though.

“The new gold rush is in space,” she declared. “There is so much opportunity in space right now for everyone.”

Exec Producer Feierbach said: “[Centerboro] wanted to get as many possible real space corporations into the film and have modified the script accordingly so that they can show the brands in a proper way.”

For example, he said Helios’ original script just featured the ISS but now includes Orbital Reef. “We have access to 2D and 3D renders of the proposed space-bound vehicles from Blue Origin,” he added.

Orbital Reef itself is described as a “unique destination” that will provide the essential infrastructure needed to scale economic activity and open new markets in space, including tourism, entertainment, research, and manufacturing.

Race for Space: MMA in Micro-G

Space 11 has perhaps the most outlandish plans. It has announced plans to build a space station operational by 2028 specifically to be used for film and TV. What’s more, it’s first project will be a reality TV MMA contest.

Galactic Combat, led by former Big Brother (US) and Hell’s Kitchen showrunner Thomas Loureiro, will see 40 MMA fighters compete for eight berths on board a rocket shuttle orbiting Earth and the chance to fight in zero gravity.

This was supposed to take off this year but there’s not been an update since early 2022 – until now.

“Galactic Combat is our first core business venture and is so exciting that I wish I could spill all the beans right now, but I can’t reveal too much information yet,” said John Lewis, VP & Managing Partner of Space 11 Corp | MMA-Zero G | Space 11 Studios and a former MMA champion. “You see, we have to protect our concept and abide by third-party NDAs. But trust me when I say that eventually, everyone will be talking about this around their kitchen table.”

Lewis is also a co-producer on Helios. He believes there’s nothing quite like the thrill of real, tangible risk in practical filmmaking.

“While it may be too early to say if there’s a demand for actual film and television shot in orbit, there’s certainly curiosity,” he said. “Imagine Tom Cruise tethered to a Starship doing a spacewalk where one misstep could send him hurtling into the abyss. That’s the kind of risk and excitement that can’t be replicated with a blue screen and CG effects.”

Space 11 founder Andrea Lervolino is an Italian producer with 75 credits to his name including Waiting for the Barbarians (2019) starring Johnny Depp and Mark Rylance.

His space station S11S is intended to host an array of entertainment content including music concerts, and includes a soundstage available to rent. Houston-based aerospace company Nanoracks is commissioned to build the station.

Lewis said: “Space 11 Corp has a unique business model that could be the answer to the entertainment industry’s space filming dreams. The S11S Spacestation/Soundstage would be a one-of-a-kind facility that can be monetized in various ways, providing a controlled environment for filming, hosting concerts, sporting events, and other entertainment-related products.”

The real game-changer could be the development of artificial gravity. “At the moment, the mystery of space is microgravity, which is wonderful to watch but can be challenging to film in,” he said. “But once we can create a more stable environment in space, it will become easier to film movies and television shows with dimension.”

“As for using the moon as a shooting location or studio, why not? Once a safe environment is created on the moon, it might be easier to film there than on a rocket ship in orbit.

“Elon Musk is the man to keep an eye on. He is at the forefront of all the exciting things happening in the space industry, including his goals of making us a multi-planetary species. Who knows what doors he will open in the years to come as he leads his company SpaceX into the future?”

 

The World Will Spend $154 Billion on AI This Year

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Worldwide spending on AI, including software, hardware, and services for AI-centric systems, will reach $154 billion in 2023, according to research from consultancy IDC. The fastest growth in AI spending will come from the media industry.

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What IDC describes as the ongoing incorporation of AI into a wide range of products will result in a compound annual growth rate of 27% over the 2022-2026 forecast with spending on AI-centric systems expected to surpass $300 billion in 2026.

“Companies that are slow to adopt AI will be left behind — large and small,” Mike Glennon, senior market research analyst with IDC says. “AI is best used to augment human abilities, automate repetitive tasks, provide personalized recommendations, and make data-driven decisions with speed and accuracy.”

The two industries that will deliver the largest AI investments between now and 2026 are banking and retail followed by professional services, but with a five-year CAGR of 30.2% it is the media industry that is exhibiting fastest growth.

The US will be the largest market for AI-centric systems, accounting for more than half of all spending worldwide in the sector throughout the forecast. Western Europe and China will spend 20% each.

Three of the leading AI use cases in terms of spending focus on sales and customer service functions: Augmented Customer Service Agents, Sales Process Recommendation and Augmentation, and Program Advisors and Recommendation Systems.

Per the report, these three use cases will see investment from nearly every industry and combined will account for more than a quarter of all AI spend this year.

Other principal use cases include IT optimization, augmented threat intelligence, and fraud analysis.

Freight trucks: a most promising market for hydrogen

IEC  E-tech

Last month a German automotive giant launched a fleet of hydrogen road cars, with its CEO referring to the natural gas (H2) as “the missing piece in the jigsaw when it comes to emission-free mobility.”

However, the market for hydrogen fuelled vehicles is more likely to be driven by heavy-duty road haulage.

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How do hydrogen vehicles work?

Like EVs, hydrogen vehicles emit zero air pollution from the exhaust.  Instead of being powered by electricity stored in a battery, fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) produce the electricity on board through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen in a fuel cell stack.  Refuelling hydrogen tanks from a pump takes less than five minutes and the range of FCEVs tend to be greater than that of EVs. The new fleet of German made cars for instance can travel 503 Km before refuelling.

There are several barriers to market for FCEVs to overcome if they are to compete with EVs. The cost of the fuel cell alone makes the price of a standard passenger car double that of a comparable EV. Another challenge for hydrogen vehicles is the need to compress the gas to very high pressures in order to get the right density of fuel on board to give you range, explains Brendan Bilton, CTO at a UK-based hydrogen refuelling station operator. “In passenger cars that’s a hell of a challenge. It’s why a lot of car manufacturers are moving to SUV models where there’s more room to package the tanks.”

Battery electric cars face a similar problem but EV batteries are small flat packs that can be distributed all over the car. Hydrogen is stored in large cylinders on board and there are only so many parts of the vehicle you can put them in.Storage space is less of a problem for light commercial and heavy goods vehicles.

Another obstacle is the lack of refuelling infrastructure. There are only around 230 H2 filling stations across the EU and the UK, most of them in Germany. The Clean Energy Partnership, an alliance of German vehicle manufacturers and filling station operators, has pledged to expand Germany’s hydrogen fuelling station network from 100 to 400 stations by 2025 when it will still be a fraction of the country’s 14500 conventional fuel outlets.

“We have a chicken and egg problem with hydrogen fuel cell technology,” explained Axel Rücker, Program Manager Hydrogen Fuel Cell at the German automotive group. “As long as the network of refuelling stations for hydrogen-powered cars is so sparse, the low demand from customers will not allow for profitable mass production of fuel cell vehicles. And as long as there are hardly any hydrogen cars on the roads, the operators will only hesitantly expand their refuelling station network.”

The equation makes more sense for road freight. As major truck makers commit to phasing out diesel by 2040, the greater range and speed of refuelling hydrogen vehicles is an attractive alternative for the road transport industry which often operates long distances round the clock.

“Bigger vehicles pulling heavy loads or with a refrigeration unit or onboard crane for lifting goods becomes a massive challenge for the power capacity of electric batteries. If haulage firms were to switch to EV trucks they would have to completely change their operating model. Hydrogen becomes the only viable zero emission fuel for that sector,” says Bilton.

Haulage drives hydrogen

Networks of H2 refuelling stations are being built targeting this market. Bilton’s company aims to have 30 hydrogen refuelling stations under development this year concentrated on the UK’s 147 truck stops and estimates that it needs about five individual nozzles per truck stop (totalling 800) by 2027 to provide comprehensive national coverage.

“We can put a skeleton network in place with 100 miles between each refuelling station which will give comfort to a haulage company that they can go anywhere on major networks and know they can fill up on a journey when they need to,” he says. “In a vehicle with a range of between 300 and 400 miles, that isn't a problem logistically.”

IEC is paving the way for this form of energy to be widely used for transport. IEC Technical Committee 9 which prepares standards for railway equipment and systems, has recently embarked on the development of a new standard, IEC 63341-1, specifying fuel cells for the propulsion of trains as well as any rolling stock type of transport, including light rail vehicles, tramways and metros. IEC TC 105 develops standards for fuel cells.

And IECEx, the IEC System for Certification to Standards Relating to Equipment for Use in Explosive Atmospheres has recently extended its IECEx certification of personnel competence scheme for assessing and certifying individuals working in potentially hazardous areas, to address hydrogen safety by adding one unit of competence – Unit Ex 011 – addressing basic knowledge of the safety of hydrogen systems.

EU supports the hydrogen transition

The EU is backing the hydrogen infrastructure to support the “decarbonization of the European transport sector” and is concentrating on the haulage sector.

A 2020 study by the EU’s Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), declared hydrogen fuel cells were a “very promising zero-emission powertrain solution for the heavy-duty trucking industry.” 

The EU’s public private Clean Hydrogen Partnership also determined that the application of hydrogen fuel cells in long-distance vehicles had “reached a sufficient level of maturity.” In tandem, a coalition of vehicle manufacturers committed to deploy 100,000 fuel cell trucks and 1,500 hydrogen fuelling stations across the EU by 2030.

According to the EU, hydrogen refuelling stations must be accessible at least every 150 Km along the Trans-European Transport (TEN-T) car network by 2030. This would create a sufficiently dense network of hydrogen refuelling stations to ensure adequate cross-border connectivity and to support the 60,000 hydrogen lorries the EU expects on its roads by the end of the decade.

Importantly, its projections rely on hydrogen fuel dropping below the current USD 6/kg for production so it will retail at € 2/kg or less at the pumps. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is optimistic hydrogen could cost less than € 1.8 euros per kilogram by 2030.

Bilton agrees, noting that the price of onshore wind and solar is dropping and that the EU can get hydrogen below € 2 a kilo for production (adding in cost for transport and compression at the pumps would at least double that). “If you can get the price of hydrogen down to € 10 per kilo or less that’s where you tip over into the cost per mile being cheaper for H2 than petrol or diesel.”

However, this relates to the cost of ‘green’ hydrogen. This is the type of hydrogen production necessary to achieve sustainability goals but one which is considerably more expensive to produce today than ‘grey’ hydrogen which is generated from fossil fuels.

How green is hydrogen?

About 95 % of all hydrogen fuel today is categorized ‘grey’ and using it to propel vehicles would fatally undermine progress on reducing CO₂ emissions.

‘Green’ hydrogen is produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. This water electrolysis process emits little carbon waste but is energy intensive meaning that to be badged ‘green’ it needs to run off renewable energy sources (wind, solar, hydro). The total energy balance sheet for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles also has to include the transportation and storage of the gas which is more complex than for petrol or diesel. For example, pipe networks used for methane may have to be upgraded before they are fit for hydrogen, adding cost to infrastructure builds.

Again, IEC Standards can help. IEC TC 31, which prepares standards for equipment used in explosive atmospheres, is looking at the issue. It has set up a hydrogen advisory group to coordinate input from TC 31 and its subcommittees to other relevant technical committees on the topic of hydrogen.

In order to make hydrogen fuel vehicles a viable - and sustainable - alternative to petrol vehicles or even electric ones, the focus must shift to these greener ways to produce hydrogen fuel.

 

 

During Exponential Tech Change, You Have to Focus on Talent and Training

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Half of all CEOs believe that digital technologies pose an existential threat to their business but digital transformation is not just about implementing new technologies. It involves a fundamental shift in mindset and culture.

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“The most significant challenge many organizations experience during their digital transformation efforts is the resistance of employees to change,” says strategic futurist Mark van Rijmenam, in a new blog post.

“Many employees may feel threatened by the changes and fear their jobs may be at risk,” he says. “It is essential to involve employees in the process and communicate the benefits of digital transformation. The change process must be well-planned and executed in a phased manner to minimize disruption to business operations.”

Implementing a digital transformation strategy is a significant undertaking for any organization and technologies such as AI, blockchain, the metaverse and the cloud have the potential to both revolutionize the industry and hugely disrupt it.

Nonetheless, despite advances in AI, robotics and other forms of automation, no organization is going to succeed in its digital transformation without taking its staff with it.

“One of the most significant challenges is the need for skilled talent to develop, implement, and maintain technologies like Blockchain, AI and cloud,” van Rijmenam says. “For example, the demand for AI and blockchain experts has far outstripped supply, leading to a shortage of skilled workers in these fields. Additionally, the complexity of these technologies can make it difficult for organizations to integrate them effectively into their existing systems and processes.

The rapid pace of tech change means that organizations must be agile and adaptable to keep up.

“This is why it is so important to invest in training and development programs to ensure that employees have the skills and knowledge necessary to work with emerging technologies instead of running away from them so that they can use them in their favor.”

This involves encouraging employees to take risks, try new things, and embrace continuous improvement. Agile organizations prioritize learning and development, providing employees with the tools and resources needed to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies, and this practice is also one of the main HR trends of 2023.

“When demand for skilled workers outstrips supply, companies must compete to attract and retain their best employees,” says van Rijmenam.

He points out that many companies are still using hiring and retention practices that may not be effective in today’s digital age. To overcome this challenge, he says companies need to rethink their talent strategies, embracing new models of talent management that prioritize skills over credentials and foster a culture of lifelong learning.

Ultimately, business agility requires a focus on culture and the mindset of talent — especially leadership. It will take more than new technology to transform an organization.

“It requires developing a management system that puts agility at the forefront of its mission, instilling a healthy degree of confidence in leadership (so they don’t balk when times are tough), and ensuring that everyone is realistically aware of what agility really means.”

UK proposes ‘Video-on-demand Code’

Streaming Media 

The UK government has published proposals which it says will enable public service broadcasters (PSBs) to compete better with foreign streamers.

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The Media Bill is intended to modernise “outdated” 2003 legislation by bringing services such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ under a new “Video-on-demand Code, similar to the Broadcasting Code.”

The VOD code will would allow UK regulator Ofcom to investigate and enforce standards, and protect audiences from harmful material – standards to which PSBs already have to abide.

Once passed, the bill could see streamers fined up to £250,000 ($308,000) if they break rules—or, in the most serious and repeated cases—restricted in the UK entirely.

VOD viewers will be able to formally complain to Ofcom, and the bill will strengthen Ofcom’s duty to assess audience protection measures on VODs such as age ratings and viewer guidance.

The Media Bill will also cement the prominence of PSBs by ensuring that their on-demand services such as iPlayer, ITVX, All 4, My5, S4C Clic, and STV Player are easily discoverable on all smart TVs and streaming devices sold in the UK.

Forcing global TV platforms to “prominently” carry UK PSB services will “help ensure distinctly British programming remains easy to find as viewing increasingly shifts online, and UK audiences can readily find the content they value when they turn on their TV.”

“These new laws will level the playing field with global streaming giants, ensuring they meet the same high standards we expect from public service broadcasters and that services like iPlayer and ITVX are easy to find however you watch TV,” said government culture minister Lucy Frazer.

Broadly the move has been welcomed, if considered long overdue.

“The sluggishness of policy makers in adapting to changes in the media landscape has hindered the progress of British businesses,” said Kieren Mills, Head of Broadcast, Total Media. “ITV held a dominant position in the UK broadcast market, but was constrained by Contract Rights Renewal whereas Google enjoyed unregulated freedom with a 90 per cent share of the search market Although the horse has already bolted to a certain extent, it is reassuring to witness the [UK Government] slowly catching up,” he continued. “Protectionism should not be promoted, but British media companies should have the opportunity to operate on a fair and equitable playing field, particularly in an industry with such significant cultural importance.”

He added, “British media cannot compete with the global streamers at what they do best—high-budget, special effects-laden, and territorially homogeneous content. Localising their content is what will enable British TV and radio companies to distinguish themselves from their counterparts, thereby retaining their audiences.”

Oscar Wall, General Manager EMEA at subscriber management company Recurly said, “The bill will certainly establish a level playing field between broadcasters and VOD services. While giving Ofcom the powers to regulate and manage consistently across the media environment, it will create healthy competition that will drive higher standards for all. In addition, the increased investment in technology is likely to attract a larger audience, establish personalised connections with viewers, and drive revenue through advertising, subscriptions, and multi-platform media partnerships.”

In a statement, Carolyn McCall, ITV’s CEO, welcomed the bill “as a decisive staging post on the journey to a modern and flexible regulatory regime for TV and media in the UK. This bill will modernise the framework for a Public Service Broadcasting system that is the cornerstone of the £116bn creative economy. Given the profound and dynamic changes in the global media ecology the need is urgent, and we would encourage the Government to ensure the bill becomes law as soon as possible.”

Tim Davie, BBC director-general, responded, “We welcome the prominence reforms which guarantee all audiences choice and make great British programmes easier to find. While we will look at the details closely, the Media Bill is urgently needed and should be passed into law swiftly.”

 

Digital tools to help reduce your firm’s carbon footprint (part 2)

TechInformed

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It’s clear that in the world’s quest to reach net zero, all eyes are on President Biden and the US’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act, which is pledging billions to invest in green technology, green energy and green jobs.

The UK’s reaction to Biden’s hard fought green deal has been divided – mainly along political lines.

Ahead of the UK Government’s revised net carbon emission strategy on Thursday, UK opposition party Labour has urged ministers to deliver a growth plan of a similar nature to Biden’s – but Tory leaders don’t seem keen on some aspects of the act, with the trade minister Kemi Badenoch branding the subsidies on offer to US firms as  ‘protectionist’ and anti-trade.

Whatever the outcome of Thursday’s strategy, an investment in green technology and cleaner energy sources appears to be something all sides agree on.

While many deep tech ideas are still in development, this week we bring you the second of our two-part green tech digital tools deep dive, which examines existing software tools and IT services that might be worth investing in to help ‘green’ enterprises’ operations.

Green APIs

APIs are a key means by which companies can easily and quickly add a variety of software apps across their systems.

So-called Green APIs are built with the intent of advancing sustainability, environmental awareness, or specific climate action initiatives. In an increasingly internet connected world the use of them can provide the ‘glue’ joining disparate data silos together.

Green APIs, for instance, can help monitor air and water quality, expose carbon emissions data and enable smart connections for analysis.

“APIs play a critical role by enabling the growth of distributed generation technologies such as solar by accessing rate and incentive calculators, solar resource data, to streamline quoting and sales, and by making it possible to integrate incentive and interconnection application processes,” says Heather Van Schoiack, a senior marketing manager for Clean Power Research.

The Clean Power Research group suite of APIs include the PowerBill API for analysing energy value, and the Clean Power Estimator for financial analysis of solar projects.

Clean Power’s SolarAnywhere API, for instance, provides irradiance data (sunlight predictions based off geographic positioning) to be integrated into applications that encourage solar alternatives.

Another Green API go-to is the Green Web Foundation, a Dutch non-profit pushing for a ‘fossil-free’ internet infrastructure from data centres to web hosting. Its API allows developers to update information about the digital infrastructure a company is using, the services it provides to others, and to see the status of providers in their own supply chain.

Cloud computing

The easiest way for many companies to improve their carbon footprint is to move their IT systems to the cloud. “It’s the equivalent of joining a carpool or using public transport, rather than using their own vehicles,” describes Ashish Arora, VP, Cloud and Infrastructure Services at Indian IT consultancy HCLTech. “Having your own servers on-premises requires hardware, facilities equipped with power supplies and cooling units to avoid overheating.”

AWS estimates that this can reduce carbon emissions by as much as 88% compared to on-premise systems that are inefficiently utilised and need constant cooling.

Analyst IDC estimates that cloud computing could eliminate a billion metric tons of CO2 emissions by the end of 2024. This is because cloud-based services are hosted at much larger data centres which use newer, more energy efficient hardware, and have carbon reduction measures in place. Cloud providers also use high, and increasing, proportions of emission free energy.

Google has been vocal about the progress it has made, claiming to be the first organisation of its size to operate with 100% renewable energy. Google’s data centres run on wind farms and solar panels, and AI/ML are used to adjust cooling technologies to ensure servers are protected, but also that energy is not wasted.

By 2030 Microsoft aims to be carbon negative, and by 2050 it has pledged to remove from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975. Cloud is one of the steps such progress will be made.

AWS data centres in Virginia meanwhile, account for almost three quarters of the world’s internet traffic and Amazon says all its facilities will be powered by renewable sources by 2025. It has also pledged to reach net-zero carbon across its entire business by 2040.

However, there are concerns companies might be downgrading their commitments because they feel that moving to the cloud ticks their ‘green’ box: a digital leadership report found that surprisingly few leaders in the UK (22%) were electing to use tech to measure their carbon footprint.

“Simply moving from an on-premises virtualised infrastructure to a [cloud] vendor’s hypervisor will not accomplish this goal,” says W. Curtis Preston, chief technical evangelist at data-protection-as-a-service provider Druva.

“While you may move the problem of power acquisition to a different entity you don’t remove it altogether.”

An alternative, he says, is for companies to “refactor on-premises applications” to make use of on-demand infrastructure (on-demand VMs, containers and serverless applications, for instance), and reduce overall power consumption, while also reducing overall IT spend: “If enough organisations did this, it could make a real dent in the power crisis,” Preston adds.

Tools like GreenOps from Cycloid also help organisations improve the sustainability of their cloud infrastructure by automating the process of turning servers on and off when not in use.

 

Digital waste monitors

According to the Global E-waste Monitor 2020, 54 million metric tonnes of e-waste was produced in 2019 and it is projected to reach 74.7m by 2030. Governments are cracking down on illegal waste exports through stricter background checks and compulsory digital waste tracking.

Legislation in the UK’s Environmental Act 2021 requires that firms record information from the point waste is produced to the stage it is disposed of, recycled and reused.

Data analytics platform Topolytics is one of the firms that has won funding from the UK government to develop WasteMap, a technology that helps firms track manufacturing waste and identifies assets that can be extracted and returned to production.

Its research found that most manufacturers lack visibility into the waste material once it enters downstream, but 90% said that knowing more about what happens to their waste is a high priority.

E-waste is also the fastest growing waste stream in the EU. Two new EU directives – the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive – are due to come into effect between 2024 and 2026 and will compel thousands of companies with an EU presence – including US and UK multinationals – to provide detailed information about how they address environmental (and human rights) risks across their entire value chain.

Circular technology lifecycle management offers a blueprint for aligning tech strategies to some of the critical points of the new regulatory framework but requires a different way of thinking about devices – as something to use and reuse, not own and discard.

Not having a strategy that looks at the entire lifecycle of a device – from procurement to information technology asset disposal (ITAD) – is simply no longer an option.

“It is increasingly urgent that enterprises, public sector organisations and governments consider sustainable alternatives that extend device life,” says Russ Ernst, CTO, Blancco Technology Group, a provider of secure sustainable data erasure and mobile lifecycle solutions.

The staggering e-waste mountain stems from “mishandling IT equipment and devices that have reached end-of-life,” Ernst says.

Organisations are also advised to look for ISO-certified processes to guarantee compliance with international laws, as well as best-practice handling of data and environmental procedures.

Low code

The overhaul of processes and systems that have been in place for many years can be a daunting prospect, one that many organisations believe will be far too complicated and costly to manage. But it doesn’t have to be.

“For too long companies have thrown more metal at IT problems, instead what needs to happen is code optimisation,” says Goldfarb. “Tech teams need to write better code and run it on efficient servers.”

By leveraging Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) tools such as low-code, businesses needn’t take a rip and replace approach to legacy systems, she argues.

Instead, existing systems can be updated and built upon using a building block approach that allows for iterative and pragmatic development using a host of Intelligent Automation (IA) tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Machine Learning (ML) to name a few.

Low code at its widest means software tools to enable employees to develop processes using drag and drop interfaces. More narrowly, low-code Application Platforms enable enterprises to develop processes and applications between three and ten times more quickly than traditional approaches.

Such an approach can help companies achieve greater efficiency toward ‘green goals’ while retaining legacy equipment.

“There are some very simple and direct emissions benefits that are easy to calculate,” says Richard Farrell, chief innovation officer at IT firm Netcall. “For example, in healthcare, the use of a low-code platform provides patient information digitally, reducing the need for printing and postage while continuing to use legacy Patient Administration Systems (PAS).

Netcall has partnered with low-code specialist DI Blue to develop the my.FirstClimate app for First Climate which supports organisations in achieving their climate objectives.

“Through the app, customers can calculate their carbon footprint, which in turn helps them to reduce their future emissions and offset any remaining emissions,” says Farrell.

Low-code platforms are typically hosted in the cloud. Connectivity with company systems is ideally achieved via APIs, although other techniques including file transfers and use of RPA (are sometimes required for less open or older systems).

APIs can be made available from some platforms (including Netcall Liberty Create), so that authorised applications in an organisation can interact with low-code data and processes.

Digital Twins

Digital Twins – real time digital replicas of real-world entities and processes – establish an environment for analysis to answer questions, suggest alterations and help identify the optimal decision – all with the objective of improving sustainability.

One of the key benefits is that the right decision can be identified up to 80% faster than with more traditional methods, according to Slingshot Simulations.

The UK startup is using its digital twin specialism to help organisations like The Rainforest Trust protect endangered natural environments globally, including private areas, national parks, community forests and indigenous property.

These changes can be implemented through digital twin technology, testing if the changes will help to make a difference to the proposed natural environment. If this is not the case, a different strategy can then be introduced.

Pete Mills, Slingshot’s development director explains, “We create a virtual digital copy of what exists in the physical world to help better plan how to tap into resources and reduce conflict without causing large-scale destruction.

The data is then shared with local communities and stakeholders – “the more eyeballs there are on these hotspots the more pressure comes to bear to effect change and the greater the incentive is to feed in more data to improve the digital twin,” Mills says.

One of the biggest open development platforms on which to build enterprise level digital twins for industrial and scientific use is the Nvidia Omniverse. California headquartered electronics designer Cadence, for example, allows users of its software in the Omniverse to create digital twins of data centres.

“This enable teams to plan, test, and validate every aspect before the physical data centre is built,” explains senior product manager, Mark Fenton.

“Our software enables engineers to simulate data centre cooling design changes and conduct ‘what-if’ analysis ultimately reducing the need to build new facilities until absolutely necessary.”

These 3D models are connected to real-time data and accurately present multiple real-world physics, including mechanical and thermal, fluid dynamics.

Once a data centre is fully constructed, the sensors, control system, and telemetry can be connected to the digital twin inside the Omniverse, enabling real-time monitoring of operations.

Engineers can then simulate power peaking or cooling system failures, optimise layout, and validate software and component upgrades before deployment.

However, there’s a ‘dark’ side to all this data generated that must be addressed. With more data being produced than ever before, estimates suggest that 80% remains ‘dark ‘– data that is not used to derive insights or decision making.

Worse, the energy required to simply store dark data results in millions of tons of CO2 emissions a year. Slingshot – which has tools to model dark data – estimates that up to 52% of all information an organisation produces and stores is dark.

So for sustainability’s sake as well as for operational and security reasons it’s regularly worth assessing what data needs to be kept for the short, medium and long term and which data can be marked for (dare we say it) deletion.

Blockchain

Organisations traditionally track supplier performance using paper records, auditing and a degree of trust. Not only a labour-intensive process, but there are also inevitable gaps in the chain and the data can be easy to falsify.

With information often unconnected across suppliers, obtaining a comprehensive and holistic and transparent picture is a challenge.  Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies promise to address the lack of accountability in the supply chain.

“Blockchain can build trust in a system by providing traceability and auditability,” says blockchain and energy entrepreneur Simone Acconero, also CEO at FlexiDAO. “During the last year, traction has increased dramatically in regard to blockchain sustainability initiatives.”

Blockchain technology enables all participants in a brand’s supply chain to record information about their activities in a single, chronological and unchangeable record.

Blocks of data are stored in a digital chain within a distributed ledger. Every time a new transaction occurs on the blockchain, a record is added to every participant’s ‘ledger’ in a way that makes it near impossible to change, hack, or cheat the system.

FlexiDAO’s blockchain claims to enable companies and governments to operate on carbon-free energy by certifying and tracing their electricity and its true carbon content around the clock.

“This is possible through a digital process called ‘tokenisation of electricity’, through which units of electricity become digital goods, assets, or environmental commodities,” explains Acconero.

“This permits automatic certificate generation (timestamping), as well as transfers and ownership-tracking based on cryptographic proof.”

Digital time-stamped energy certificates can only be cancelled once, preventing double counting of renewable energy. Auditors can trace electricity consumed in the supply chain back to any stage of its life cycle via blockchain.

“Ultimately, when requested, we can tokenize this electricity produced by a specific renewable asset on a specific grid at a specific time, and accurately match this with a company’s consumption using blockchain as a digital notary.”

FlexiDAO counts energy buyers like Google, Microsoft, and Vodafone using its system as well as energy sellers like Acciona and Fortum.

Blockchain can also be used to track carbon offsetting commitments. Clothing brand Tentree plants 10 trees for every item sold and tracks this on the blockchain. Its partners input data such as GPS coordinates, site images, planting details, along with ground-based sensors with timestamps that are permanently recorded on the blockchain.

Meanwhile web3 technologists Trst01 and Rubix have joined forces in India to offer companies operating there a blockchain authenticated ‘plastics credit’ system. Plastic credits are described by Trst01 as measurable, verifiable and transferable units representing a specific quantity of plastic collected from the environment or recycled.

This is intended to help companies authenticate their conformity with national recycling standards.