The great Avatar ripoff

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 23rd March 2010.

James Cameron’s Avatar, winner of 3 Oscars at this year’s Academy Awards and now the highest grossing feature of all time, will hit Australian retail shelves on 29th April. Unfortunately for consumers, the blu-ray and DVD editions will consist of the 2D version of the movie only with absolutely no extra features. This sort of release is known in the industry as a “vanilla” edition.

Vanilla editions are extremely common within the film industry, especially for budget releases and older features. A film distributor may not feel that they will sell enough copies to warrant the expense of sourcing or producing extra features. For films produced prior to the eighties and the invention of VHS, there may literally be no existing footage or promotional material surviving. Of course, this is not always the rule, as the recently released deluxe editions of Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz include hours of commentaries, documentaries and featurettes.

In the case of Avatar, the initial release of the film as a vanilla edition is simply a cash grab by 20th Century Fox.  With the movie having only just departed cinemas and the Oscars buzz still around, why not sell as many vanilla editions as possible to an unsuspecting public who are desperate to see the film again?

In their defence, the film company will probably argue that the general public isn’t really interested in extra features and just want the movie. However, with its ground breaking motion capture technology and virtual camera system which may (or may not) change filmmaking forever, surely one of the most interesting aspects of Avatar as a motion picture must be its production.

What Fox may not want you to know is that a reissue of Avatar in 3D in cinemas is in the works for later this year. The reissue may include extra scenes not seen in the initial release. This will be followed by a Deluxe Collector’s Edition on DVD and blu-ray in November, which will be laden with extras.

So far, there has been no mention of a 3D DVD or blu-ray release. The technology is already available for this to occur. Coraline, My Bloody Valentine, The Final Destination and Journey to the Center of the Earth all have received home 3D DVD and blu-ray releases, albeit with anaglyph (red/blue lens) technology. This style of 3D is inferior to the polarized lens system found in cinemas but is the only viable and affordable home option until 3D television hits our shores over the next few years (and it will be very expensive initially).

To be fair, Avatar is a feast for the eyes and a milestone in modern filmmaking. It represented a huge financial risk for James Cameron and 20th Century Fox, and thanks to the huge box office receipts worldwide, will be extremely profitable for all involved. However, the fact that it was incredibly expensive to make does not justify the contempt that is being shown to movie fans with its money grabbing marketing plan.

It most likely doesn’t end with Avatar either. Cinema chains across the UK were recently in dispute with Disney over its plans to decrease the timeframe between Alice in Wonderland’s cinema and DVD release from 17 to 12 weeks. Expect Alice to be on your local retailer shelves by June, hopefully in a Super Mega 3D Limited Double Disc Collector’s Edition.

Published in: on March 23, 2010 at 11:09  Leave a Comment  
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Sellaband crashes

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 16th March 2010.

Sellaband, the fan driven music website I wrote about in July last year, was declared bankrupt by a Dutch court on 22nd February. A couple of days later, a German company based in Munich bought the company and declared that they would honour all of the investments made by supporters. Launched in August 2006, Sellaband was a revolutionary concept for new musical artists. Bands and singers worldwide uploaded tracks onto the Sellaband website. Fans could listen to the songs for free and then invest in an album, usually the artist’s debut, by purchasing shares or parts at US$10 each. Once an artist had acquired enough shareholders, or “believers”, to raise US$50 000, then the finances would be released to the musicians to record, produce and market their album. In exchange for their investment, fans received a limited edition CD album of their artist. So what went wrong? Despite over forty artists reaching their goal and recording their albums, Sellaband was unable to turn a profit. Even the interest on the millions of dollars sitting in the bank on behalf of the artists who had yet to make their target was not enough to keep the company afloat. In this modern era of iTunes and mp3 files, the traditional album has become a dinosaur. Singles and standalone tracks now dominate the market, as consumers pick and choose the songs they like. Sellaband’s reliance on albums meant that artists had to produce a whole CD of quality tracks, something that even successful mainstream bands and singers often fail to achieve. Once an album was recorded, there wasn’t the opportunity for artists to release singles to promote their CD. Copies were sent out to the investors and little else happened. High quality of acts and artists was also a bugbear for Sellaband. With no-one screening the musicians, anyone could create a profile on the website and receive investments. With 3600 artists listed on the Sellaband website, there were simply too many acts for the general public to peruse and it became extremely difficult for an individual to attract enough attention and investment to reach their goal. Sellaband also encouraged acts to utilise high profile producers, which resulted in well recorded albums but also ate up most of the budget leaving little for promotion. In an attempt to address these problems, Sellaband altered their funding plan in October last year to allow complete flexibility for artists in terms of budget and goal (album, EP, single, music video, etc). They even attracted high profile rappers Public Enemy who aimed to raise US$250 000 with US$25 shares. Unfortunately, these changes were not enough to turn Sellaband fortunes around. The new owners of Sellaband are yet to announce what, if any, other changes they intend to make to the website. It is speculated that they may reduce the number of artists available for investment and steer the investing public towards the most viable and marketable acts. They have, however, released a new set of terms and conditions which doesn’t allow investors to sell their shares and cash out before an artist reaches a goal. For any music fans with an urge to invest in some of their favourite bands, I would suggest they remain cautious and not send any of their hard earned dollars to Germany until the future of Sellaband becomes clearer.

Published in: on March 17, 2010 at 08:18  Leave a Comment  
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Fan funded music: Sellaband

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 5th July 2010.

Music fans looking for an alternative to the commercial music industry are turning to the internet. Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook have allowed new and undiscovered artists, such as one hit wonder Sandi Thom, to gain worldwide exposure. Long gone are the days of garage bands making demo CDs to hand out at gigs (it was actually demo cassettes in my rather embarrassing grunge band phase). And now a new movement known as “fan funded music” is becoming increasingly popular online.

Sellaband (www.sellaband.com) was launched in August 2006 and is based in Amsterdam. The aim of the company is to assist musicians by bringing them together with fans who are willing to pool money together to fund a recording.

Aspiring solo artists and bands register on the website and then upload their profile including info, photos and music. Punters can then browse these profiles and listen to tracks. If an artist or group takes your fancy, you can become a “believer” by purchasing a share or “part” for US$10. When an artist attracts enough paying fans to sell 5000 parts, they can then access the US$50,000 to record an album with the producers and engineers of their choice.

For each part purchased, the believer receives a limited edition copy of the CD they have helped fund. Sellaband recordings are also distributed worldwide via online retailers such as Amazon and iTunes. For a five year period following the release of the recording, any net revenues are equally shared by the artists and the believers.

So far, 21 artists have successfully reached their $50,000 goal and  released an album. Of these, two artists hail from Australia. Folk rock singer Mandyleigh Storm from Perth released “Fire and Ice” in March 2008. Brisbane rock band, Vegas Dragons, were also successful. There are another 11 artists worldwide currently recording, including Australian hard rock singer Tiffany Gow.

 A great feature of Sellaband is its flexibility. Fickle believers can move their shares around from artist to artist, and even sell back parts for a refund. It is only when an artist reaches their goal that the supporters are formally locked in.

Sellaband also allows you to communicate directly with your favourite artists. Within minutes of purchasing a part, the selected artist is usually personally thanking you for your support via email. Fans can message and chat with other believers and Sellaband musicians worldwide.

Sellaband and similar website Slicethepie (www.slicethepie.com) are a great way to discover new music from almost every style and genre. Even if you choose not to invest, it costs absolutely nothing to listen to music from all over the world.

Published in: on March 17, 2010 at 08:17  Leave a Comment  
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My column has jumped the shark

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 9th March 2010.

Have you ever been watching your favourite television show and thought that it didn’t seem to be as good as usual? There’s a good chance that it has jumped the shark.

“Jumping the shark” is a popular term used to describe a TV series that has peaked and has begun to decline. This is often when the creative forces behind a show have run out of ideas and are starting to use desperate measures to regain their once loyal viewers.

The phrase refers to an episode from the fifth season of Happy Days which was filmed in 1977. In this episode, to prove his manhood, Fonzi (Henry Winkler) jumps over a deadly man-eating shark, complete with stock footage, on water-skis. Looking ridiculous in his budgie smugglers and trademark leather jacket, Fonzi’s stunt is widely regarded as a sure sign that the popular TV show was beginning to decline creatively. Of course, Happy Days continued for many years following that infamous episode but it never quite had the same magic.

There are several indicators that a show has jumped the shark. Here are a few.

One of the lead actors departing from a series is a significant clue. Actress Valerie Harper left her eponymous 80’s sitcom in a dispute with the producers, who promptly renamed it “Valerie’s Family”. After threats of litigation from Harper, it was then re-renamed “The Hogan Family”. By this time, the audience had lost interest and the show was cancelled soon after. John Ritter’s tragic premature death in 2003 also brought an early end to his sitcom 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. It stumbled on for another 2 years as “8 Simple Rules” and his character was deemed to have died also from a heart attack between seasons.

Shows built around the sexual tension between characters also tend to lose their appeal and audiences once the writers make the mistake of having those characters marry or sleep together. This is another sign that a shark has been jumped. A great example of this is Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, which was axed soon after its lead characters were married. Other examples include Moonlighting, Who’s The Boss? and The Nanny.

Bringing in a cute child character is another red flag that a shark is circling. Remember the little fat kid from Hey Dad? Annoying Arthur MacArthur, played by Sorbent ad child actor Matthew Krok, was added to the cast to ensure that the cute factor remained as Mr Kelly’s youngest daughter Jenny grew up. By the time the show ended a few years later, only Betty the Receptionist (Julie McGregor) remained as an original cast member. In fact, even the dad in Hey Dad abandoned the show before its eventual demise.

Complicated storylines which confuse viewers also tend to result in a drop in ratings, particularly when it becomes clear that a resolution may not be on the cards immediately. Whilst there may not be an actual jump the shark moment, TV shows with convoluted plots which move at a snail’s pace such as Flashforward, Heroes, The X-Files and Lost were certainly shining up their skis pretty early on for the majority of viewers.

Keep an eye out for these signs and you’ll be sure to know that your favourite show has jumped the shark and it’s time to change the channel.

Published in: on March 9, 2010 at 20:15  Comments (4)  
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The Oscars: Who will win and who should win?

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 2nd March 2010.

The 82nd Academy Awards will be presented in the US on Sunday 7th March, which means that all of the drama will unfold during the day on Monday 8th March Australian time. The winners of the British Academy Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Golden Globes have already been announced and are said to predict the outcome of the Oscars. However, as last year’s Best Actor category showed, where Mickey Rourke won at the majority of award ceremonies but lost out to Sean Penn for the big one, the winners are not necessarily set in stone. Here are my tips for who will win and who should win an Oscar.

Best Lead Actor Jeff Bridges has been winning acclaim for his role of grizzled country singer “Bad” Blake in Crazy Heart. He also actually performs the songs in the film. I expect him to win this year based on his large and impressive body of work and his previous four nominations. For my money, Colin Firth should win for his portrayal of a college professor planning to suicide after the death of his lover in A Single Man.

Best Lead Actress Sandra Bullock is strangely in the lead to win best actress for The Blind Side as well as worst actress for the bomb All About Steve. As a heartstring tugging sports flick, all tickets to The Blind Side should come with a box of tissues. Bullock is probably the best thing in it, so I’d prefer the award go to Cary Mulligan for her performance as a 1960’s schoolgirl who is swept off her feet by an older man in An Education.

Best Supporting Actor Austrian actor Christolph Waltz will be unstoppable in this category. His remarkable Nazi Colonel Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds is easily the most memorable villain of the year. Expect an acceptance speech where Waltz babbles about how Basterd’s director Quentin Tarantino changed his life.

Best Supporting Actress Comedienne and actress Mo’Nique’s frighteningly gritty performance as neglectful and violent mother Mary in Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (yes, that is actually the full title of the film) has already won several awards. She’ll accept her Oscar with an emotionally charged speech. God is sure to be thanked.

Best Animated Feature Disney’s return to hand drawn features with The Princess and the Frog, and two old school stop motion hits in Coraline and The Fantastic Mr Fox have made 2009 a very memorable year for animation. However, no other film, animated or otherwise, had the heart of Up. The first ten minutes of this Disney-Pixar classic are gut wrenchingly sad and will never leave you.

Best Director James Cameron will win for his motion capture remake of FernGully. His breakthroughs in high tech filmmaking (Terminator 2, The Abyss and Titanic) have shaped the film industry over the past twenty five years. He’ll never win a best screenplay award, but much like The Jazz Singer in 1927 which introduced sound to the cinema, Avatar will be remembered as a turning point in motion pictures. For films set on Earth, I’d love to see James Cameron’s ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow get the nod for The Hurt Locker.

Best Picture Dances with Smurfs will win, no question. This year, to improve TV ratings, the nominee list for best picture has been expanded to ten films. My picks for the silver medal would be South African sci-fi classic District 9 (love the prawns), Iraq-set military thriller The Hurt Locker and Quentin Tarantino’s rewriting of World War 2 history, Inglorious Basterds.

Published in: on March 7, 2010 at 13:06  Leave a Comment  
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A good cause but I Haiti the song

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 23rd February 2010.

The recent earthquake disaster in Haiti has prompted the stars of popular music to come together in both the UK and the US to record fundraising singles. Stateside, original USA for Africa producers Lionel Ritchie and Quincy Jones have teamed up with Haitian born musician Wyclef Jean to record We Are the World 25: For Haiti, whilst Simon Cowell, at the behest of British PM Gordon Brown, spearheaded the UK response, a cover of REM’s Everybody Hurts under the Helping Haiti banner.

A reworking of 1985’s We Are the World, over seventy of America’s most talented performers and Miley Cyrus contributed to Artists for Haiti. Renown vocalists such as Barbra Steisand, Celine Dion and Tony Bennett appear alongside rappers including Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J and Will.i.am. Michael Jackson’s vocals from the original recording also feature. Criticised for its use of Auto-Tune to augment Lil Wayne’s lines, much like the weird pitch change effect in Cher’s hit single Believe, We Are the World 25: For Haiti is a mess. Stylistically, the mix of classic vocal delivery and rapping clashes badly, and Jamie Foxx’s impersonation of Ray Charles to sing the late soul legend’s lines from the original is in dubious taste.

Helping Haiti consists of over twenty talented stars and Miley Cyrus (again). Mainly UK based singers with a sprinkling of international artists such as Jon Bon Jovi and Michael Bublé, this supergroup is much more pop based than its US cousin, featuring members of Take That and Westlife alongside Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue, Mika and Susan Boyle. A traditional take on the original, Everybody Hurts is a more successful recording as it relies on the strength of the songwriting of REM’s 1993 hit. REM also graciously waived all royalties for this single. Let’s just now hope that no-one finds any flute riffs from “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree” in it.

The ultimate novelty song, the charity single became popular following the release of Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas in 1984. Organised by the Boomtown Rat’s Bob Geldof and featuring an amazing array of stars such as Bono, Phil Collins, George Michael, Sting and Boy George, Do They Know It’s Christmas sold 3.5 million copies in the UK alone and was the highest selling UK single ever until Elton John’s Candle in the Wind 1997, also a charity single. Band Aid II and Band Aid 20 followed in 1989 and 2004 respectively, with new versions of the same song.

Other notable, and less serious, charity singles include Living Doll by Cliff Richard and the Young Ones, That’s What Friends Are For by Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and Elton John, and Absolutely Fabulous by the Pet Shop Boys, Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French.

From a music buyer’s perspective, the problem with charity records is that they have little longevity. They are so entrenched in a particular time, place or issue that they are unlikely to be on anyone’s turntable, CD player or iPod beyond their initial release. On a positive note, they are a great snapshot of who was popular at that particular time. For every Bono on 1984’s Do They Know It’s Christmas, there is a Marilyn (a long forgotten one hit wonder Boy George clone).

Both of the singles benefitting Haiti are performing well on the charts, although it is yet to be seen if they match the sales of their 80’s predecessors. I’ve purchased and downloaded both to contribute to the cause, but have little interest in listening to either more than once.

Published in: on March 3, 2010 at 06:29  Leave a Comment  
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