ImaginativePRO Blog

NETFLIX STOCK HITS ALL-TIME HIGH ON NEWS NETFLIX PLANS TO ENTER CHINA, IN PARTNERSHIP TALKS WITH JACK MA'S WASU

On May 19, 2015, NETFLIX’S STOCK REACHED an all time high for the third day in a row.  Shares peaked at $628.50 a share.  And some analysts expect the price to keep climbing.

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The record share price peak followed reports from two Wall Street analysts that called Netflix undervalued.  Last week, analysts at Apex Capital largely agreed.   The firm said.  

"Netflix is quickly becoming one of the most powerful media companies in the world.”

The firm added that the streaming video giant could soon become the next $100 billion tech company.

Wall Street, it seems, sees the future much the way Netflix does—a future where Netflix takes over everywhere. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said in an earnings call last month.

“Internet TV is growing around the world at incredible rates.  And so we’re really propelled by that big macro trend.”

These skyrocketing expectations, and accompanying stock price, are in large part due to Netflix’s rapid expansion abroad—in particular, reports since Friday, May 22, 2015, that Netflix is in talks to expand into a huge new market: China. But as all conquerors know far too well, the path to world domination doesn’t come without resistance. Despite its aggressive growth, the company has already experienced pressure from its European markets to improve its service—and fast. 

The Path of More Resistance

Netflix is growing, and quickly, even in its more mature markets like the US, but especially abroad. In the past few years, Netflix has been rapidly expanding to reach beyond US shores. The service now touts more than 20 million international subscribers in more than 50 countries, including the more recent additions of Australia, New Zealand, and even Cuba. By 2017, the company says it wants to be in 200 markets. But even in Europe, Internet speed and access has been a limiting factor. In a recent talk in Germany, Hastings was asked if Netflix would consider a download option so German subscribers wouldn’t have to be dependent on streaming. Hastings’ answer amounted to “no.”

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What’s more, if content is king, European subscribers have been markedly disappointed with Netflix’s offerings. In France and Germany, for example, the original content selections are not as wide as those offered in the US, in part due to licensing deals with local broadcasters  and distribution rules in different countries. (To get around that, some are opting to use a VPN to access the American service, according to The New York Times.) European filmmakers are also unhappy that Netflix is encroaching on their turf—one recently shouting at the Cannes Film Festival that Netflix “will destroy the film ecosystem in Europe.”

Piracy is another major concern for Netflix abroad, according to the company’s latest letter to shareholders. In the Netherlands, for example, Netflix has seen competition from apps such as Popcorn Time that make illegal streaming as easy as a legal service. (Netflix has called the app’s success in the Netherlands “sobering.”) In fact, House of Cards has become hugely successful in China thanks to pirating.

More World to Conquer

Rather than being deterred, Netflix seems to be confronting those obstacles by growing even more. The streaming giant has plans to expand to Japan later this year, and analysts expect the company will try to break into the Chinese and Korean markets soon, too. For any company dependent on subscribers, the biggest fear in any single market is reaching the saturation point. For Netflix—and its share price—to keep growing, the company is betting it will need to continue to expand.

But a new market brings new demands. In its letter to shareholders, Netflix said that early signs indicate that promoting original content helps bring in new members. So, to get new subscribers in France, Netflix is launching an upcoming French-language drama Marseille, advertised as House of Cards for the French. But for an expansion into China, despite being a market already primed to love shows like House of Cards, censorship and stringent regulations on content could prove tough, which is why Netflix seems to be looking to find a partner to smooth its entry.

Netflix has enormously popular original content, the revenue to invest in new shows, and the data to predict the programming subscribers will like best. It’s a recipe for world domination. The company, and now Wall Street, just better hope it translates.

COMMENTARY:

Q1 2015 Earnings Report Highlights

Here are some of the highlights of Netflix earnings report compared to forecasts that were announced on April 15, 2015: 

• Earnings per share: $0.77 (adjusted for foreign-exchange rate changes since last year) vs. $0.69 expected.
• Revenue: $1.57 billion vs. $1.57 billion expected; $1.4 billion total streaming revenue; $415 million international streaming revenue.
• Subscribers: 62.30 million vs. 61.44 million forecast; US streaming net additions 2.28 million vs expectations of 1.8 million; international user additions 2.6 million vs. 2.25 million

Netflix shares increased by more than 12% in after hours, largely because of the big increase in new-user additions.  It added a record 4.9 million new users globally in the last quarter, bringing total number of users to 62.3 million. Both its US and international user additions beat expectations.

Its total streaming revenue was largely in line with expectations, up about 32% from last year. The subscriber growth was higher than expected as its total paid members came in at 59.6 million, slightly more than the 58.7 million forecast. All in all, Netflix added about 14 million new users over the past 12 months.

Netflix said in a statement.

"We think strong US growth benefited from our ever-improving content, including the launch of the third season of House of Cards and new shows Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Bloodline. In addition, retention continued to improve due to the growing value of our service overall. We are forecasting Q2 US net adds of 0.6 million, similar to the year ago quarter." 

In Q4 2014, Netflix launched its streaming service in Australia and New Zealand as part of its plan to finish its global expansion within the next two years. Netflix said it expects to add 1.9 million international users in the next quarter.

Netflix also confirmed that it's seeking shareholder approval for a stock split.  Its stock closed at $475.46 per share on Wednesday, April 15.

Here's what Netflix CEO Reed Hastings had to say about the quarter's performance:

"During Q1, higher-than-forecast net adds and US revenue, coupled with lower-than-forecast content spending, resulted in a US contribution margin of 31.7%, ahead of our 30.1% estimate. In 2015, we expect to run ahead of our US contribution margin growth target of 200 bps/year on average because a greater share of global and original content costs will be absorbed by existing and new international territories as we continue to expand globally (since we allocate global content costs by geography).

In addition, starting in Q2 we intend to shift some of our US marketing budget to international to take advantage of the substantial available growth opportunities. This, in the short term, drives down international contribution profits and drives up US contribution profits. We are still targeting 40% contribution margin in the US in 2020.

Our international segment was fueled by continued strong growth across our 50+ countries as well as a successful March 24 launch in Australia and New Zealand, which adds about 8 million1 broadband households to our addressable market. In ANZ, Netflix benefited from high consumer awareness, a fervent fan base for original series like House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black and operator relationships with Optus and iiNet, the second and third largest broadband providers. We expect international Q2 net adds of 1.90 million, up 70% vs. last year. Later in 2015, we will launch additional markets, starting with Japan.

The strong dollar hurt financial results during the quarter, negatively affecting International segment revenue (lower by $48 million y/y using Q1 2014 forex rates) which carried through into a $15M negative forex impact on international contribution loss. These forex headwinds offset better than expected subscriber growth to result in contribution losses close to our expectations. As a reminder, we absorbed on average 5% higher VAT rates across our European markets starting January 1. We’ll have a full quarter of content expenses in ANZ in Q2 and expect the international segment loss to grow to $101 million, increasing throughout the back half of 2015 as we expand to additional markets (consistent with what we’ve said).

Our strong performance led to overall operating income that exceeded our projections ($97m actual versus $79m forecast). Net income was negatively affected by currency-related transaction losses included in other expense; excluding these forex losses, Q1 EPS would have been $0.77 vs. our $0.60 forecast and our actual EPS of $0.38."

Netflix reported total worldwide streaming revenues of $1.4 billion for the quarter, up 7.28% from Q4 2014 and up 31.33% from Q1 2014.  U.S. streaming revenues for the quarter were $985 million, up 7.41% from Q4 2014 and up 23.28% from Q1 2014.   International streaming revenues for the quarter were $415 million, up 6.9% from Q4 2014 and up 55.43% from Q1 2014.     

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Profitability and Cash Flow Are Down

Netflix's operating income for the quarter was $97 million, up 49.23% from Q4 2014 and slightly down 1% from Q1 2014.  Net income for the quarter was $24 million, down 71.1% from Q4 2014 and down 54.7% from Q1 2014.  

Netflix's reported a free cash flow deficit of $163 million for the quarter, this was up 114.86% from the free cash flow deficit of $74 million reported in Q4 2014.  

Both profitability and free cash flow have been negatively impacted by higher content and marketing costs incurred to improve its film entertainment offerings and higher marketing and promotions costs in order to increase subscriptions and streamings, particularly as it expands into new markets like Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Netflix Plans To Enter China

According to Bloomberg, Netflix is in talks with Wasu Media Holding Co (000156.SZ), a Chinese media company backed by Jack Ma and other possible partners as it seeks entry into the country’s $5.9 billion online video market, according to people familiar with the matter.

Netflix has held discussions with companies including Wasu Media Holding about forming a partnership, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. Netflix plans “to be nearly global by the end of 2016,” a spokeswoman, Anne Marie Squeo, said in response to questions about a possible China partnership.

Entering China would allow Netflix to take advantage of what’s forecast to be explosive growth in online television in the nation of 1.4 billion people. The market is expected to almost triple to 90 billion yuan by 2018, according to Shanghai- based Internet consultant IResearch.

A local partnership would be essential given the Chinese government’s strict controls over licensing for online content. Netflix wants a partner that has licenses for content on all devices — including mobile phones, computers and set-top boxes, according to the people. China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television has given Internet TV licenses to seven companies, including Wasu.

Wasu didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment. Two phone calls to Wasu’s general line weren’t answered.

Courtesy of an article dated May 19, 2015 appearing in Wired, the letter dated April 15, 2015 to Netflix Shareholders, an article dated April 15, 2015 appearing in Business Insider, and an article dated April 16, 2015 appearing in Informitv, and an article dated May 24, 2015 appearing in The Day

THE 3D ROBOTICS SOLO MAY BE THE SMARTEST DRONE EVER AND AT $1,000 OPENS THE DOOR TO ALL AMATEURS

 

What goes up must come down — and if it's a drone you're talking about, it often comes down in the most unfortunate ways possible.

It bounces off a tree trunk, smashes into a highway tunnel, or careens into the side of a building. It runs out of battery and falls into a body of water. Your four-figure investment is typically only as good as your ability to handle it once it's aloft — which is why I'm a bit anxious when I first take the controller for the Solo, which 3D Robotics is billing as the smartest drone ever.

Competition for that title gets tougher all the time: just last week, DJI announced Phantom 3, the next version of its best-selling consumer drone, with improved cameras and the ability to live-stream video from the drone to YouTube. But Solo represents a step forward in a few big ways: onboard computers in the controller and the drone, allowing for enhanced controls; full access to GoPro camera controls in flight (a first); and software that allows novices to create intricate multistep shots using just a couple taps. Solo also offers a level of customer support previously unheard of in the industry. 3DR will give you a 30-day money-back guarantee if your drone bores you and free replacement if Solo breaks while in flight.

The company is betting Solo will appeal to drone enthusiasts and novices alike — and that it can begin to chip away at the consumer drone market that the Phantom helped create. It is a critical time for 3DR, which has raised $85 million from investors.

3DR’s Colin Guinn says. 

“We are a player, but we are the underdog player.  How big of a defining moment is it? It is the moment. This is the introduction to the world of 3DR.”

3DR’s Colin Guinn shown flyig the new Solo drone (Click Image To Enlarge)

Meet the Guinnmeister

Guinn came to 3DR from DJI, where he was CEO of DJI's North American division. He helped lead design and marketing efforts for the Phantom, the Chinese company's hugely popular consumer model. Thanks in part to a series of popular YouTube videos where Guinn showed off the Phantom’s capabilities, he became well known to hobbyists. One drone blog continues to refer to him in headlines as "The Guinnmeister."

But Guinn's relationship with DJI executives in China soured over business terms, lawsuits were filed, and last February he decamped with his team for 3DR. (Guinn declines to comment on the lawsuit, which was settled.) Now at 3DR, Guinn's official title is chief revenue officer. But his role at the company is much larger than the bean-counter title suggests: the new Solo drone is hisbaby, 3.3 pounds of precision-engineered flying plastic robot.

"WE’RE BASICALLY GIVING PEOPLE A SUPERHUMAN POWER FOR A THOUSAND BUCKS."

And even all that doesn't really get at the main thing about Colin Guinn, which is that he isobsessed with drones. Because he once ran an aerial photography company, shooting scenes for Hollywood films, Guinn has an all-encompassing knowledge about how to make movies in the sky. When he speaks, what comes across is this overwhelming sense that to own a drone is to have a superpower — and that if you could only master that power, you could bend the universe a little more exactly to your will.

3D Robotics Solo Drone up close (Click Image To Enlarge

He mentions the history of comic book and fantasy characters who have the ability to see the world through the eyes of a bird.  Guinn asks.

"What is the difference between those powers and Solo, with a high-definition video feed coming from the GoPro?  We’re basically giving people a superhuman power for a thousand bucks."

3DR’s Colin Guinn smiles as he operates the Solo drone (Click Image To Enlarge)

It's time for me to try out my powers.

3D Robotics Solo Drone controller (Click Image To Enlarge)

Flying Solo

On a blustery day in Berkeley, California, we take a pre-production Solo unit onto the roof of 3DR headquarters. Guinn pops the drone out of a separately sold backpack and spins on the rotors. He snaps in the battery and attaches a GoPro to the gimbal. The whole process takes about 60 seconds.

3D Robotics Guinn uses a handheld controller to fly the Solo Drone (Click Image To Enlarge)

I pick up the controller and press a button marked "FLY." The rotors spin up, and suddenly Solo is safely in the air, hovering 10 or so feet off the ground. Autopilot keeps it roughly in place while I think about what to do next. We decide to shoot a selfie, a pre-scripted shot you can find in the app that runs on your tablet. With a couple taps, Solo zooms off into the sky, then slowly flies back in, keeping me perfectly in frame. We watch it all unfold on Guinn's iPad Mini, which snaps onto the controller and accesses most of Solo's functions. When it's all done, we save the video to the iPad's camera roll. If I wanted, I could post it to Instagram while I'm still flying.

The 3D Robotics controller includes toggles to control the flight of their Solo drone and an Apple iPad Mini (which snaps into a special slot) that displays what the drone's 12 megapixel camera is seeing while in flight (Click Image To Enlarge)

Solo does more complicated shots, too. A "cable cam" lets you set up a virtual line in the sky and then have Solo traverse it automatically, as if suspended on a wire. We use it to create dramatic shots that rise up above the railroad tracks next to 3DR headquarters and smoothly pan to reveal the San Francisco Bay behind us. 3DR is already seeding Solo units with filmmakers; Guinn says director Michael Bay's review of Solo, having used it once, was: "Fuuuuuck."

I'm no Michael Bay, though I'm pretty sure I could get the drone to explode if I could only figure out how to turn off the autopilot. Over a handful of 20-minute flights, I never even develop the muscle memory for what the control sticks do; I just fly Solo using trial and error. It's a luxury that most drones simply haven't afforded up until now; it helped me to relax and enjoy myself in a way I can't imagine being possible even a year ago.

Toward the end of one flight, while trying to get a shot, I find myself walking backward while keeping my eyes focused on Solo overheard. THUNK. I trip over a small HVAC unit on 3DR's roof and fall flat on my ass. Various bits of plastic fly off the controller, and the battery comes loose, barely tethered to the unit.

I'm dazed, my video team is laughing, and Guinn is asking if I'm alright. And Solo? It's still humming away up above me, perfectly content in the 20 mph winds, ready to do whatever I ask, with 70 percent of its battery remaining. We reassemble the controller and land it safely with two button taps.

I crashed; the drone didn't. Score one for the robots.

A pair of 3D Robotics Solo drones being assembled by 3DR engineers (Click Image To Enlarge)

How it works

3DR is unveiling Solo today at the National Association of Broadcasters Show in Las Vegas, and it will begin shipping in a few weeks. For a base price of $999, with an optional $399 gimbal for enhanced camera controls, Solo is the first drone to offer full control of a GoPro camera. (I asked GoPro what they liked so much about Solo, and they sent back a bone-dry statement that didn't really answer the question — I assume because they worried about offending their other partners.) But the integration turns out to be a big deal: with Solo you can start and stop recordings, or change the camera's frame rate or other settings while in flight. It's stuff filmmakers have been asking for forever.

Most drones use a single computer, located in the flying unit, and broadcast signals to it using a controller. Solo, on the other hand, has 1 Ghz processors in both the controller and the quadcopter. The processor on the quadcopter is devoted entirely to autopilot functions necessary to keep it aloft. Meanwhile, the controller serves as Solo's "frontal cortex," and operates higher-level functions — some of which will arrive through future software updates. (My favorite of these, which I used in a test unit, is a flight "rewind" feature — simply tap and hold the "pause" button, which normally functions as a kind of emergency brake, and Solo retraces its steps. It's expected to ship within 60 days from launch.)

"IT'S STUFF FILMMAKERS HAVE BEEN ASKING FOR FOREVER"

The Solo app will warn you when your battery is running low, flying home automatically to ensure you make it on time. (You can override the feature, but the controller will start vibrating until you land safely.) 3DR is also rolling out the world's most expansive customer service program for drone owners, for a product where service has been downright medieval. (Drone drop into the ocean? Sorry about that! Feel free to buy another.)

It's the first drone to offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if you aren't satisfied with your purchase; you'll just have to complete a five-question survey, providing data 3DR will use to improve future versions. Meanwhile, a team of nearly 100 in-house technicians will respond to calls for help, using the data that Solo continuously logs during flights.

The Solo app detects crashes and will ask you if you want to submit a trouble ticket in the event something goes wrong. If it's your fault, 3DR will offer to sell you a refurbished unit at a lower cost. And if the flight logs show Solo was at fault, 3DR will replace your drone — along with your gimbal and GoPro, if they also perished — at no cost.

3D Robotics Solo drone with high resolution GoPro Hero 4 camera (Click Image To Enlarge)

Catching up to Phantom

Will all that be enough to make 3DR the biggest player in the game? We may soon find out. The company was founded in 2009 by Chris Anderson, the author and former editor of Wired, and engineer Jordi Muñoz. (Anderson had been inspired in part by a 2007 incident in which he crashed a camera-equipped, remote-control plane into a tree at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.) The pair met on a web forum Anderson created, DIY Drones, whose community had developed powerful open-source software for controlling flying objects. Today the company has 300 employees, with offices in Berkeley, San Diego, Tijuana, and Austin, Texas.

Last fall 3DR introduced a consumer drone named Iris+. But it has lagged in sales behind DJI and Parrot, according to estimates from Gartner Research. DJI sold an estimated $500 million in drones last year for professional and amateur use, focused on aerial photography and videography. (Last summer, its Phantom 2 Vision+ was The Verge's pick for best consumer drone.) The market for consumer drones is still well under $1 billion, according to Gartner.

But an FAA ruling in February finally gave explicit permission to what had previously been a legal gray area. And the cost of consumer drones is coming down, albeit slowly. The big three manufacturers are betting that if drones become a bit easier to use and develop an expanded range of applications, the market will grow more quickly.

"YOU PRESS THE BUTTON AND YOU GET THE SHOT."

Anderson says. 

            "As the product becomes more sophisticated, the users can become less sophisticated.  In the             same way the iPhone transformed the phone by turning it into a single button — all that             complexity reduced to a single button — what Solo does is it takes all the complexity of             flying and robots and data acquisition and turns it into what is effectively a single button.             You press the button and you get the shot."

It's in that sense that 3DR sees the latest drones as the start of a new age in drones. Anderson says.

            "The first era of our industry was getting robots to fly. It was super hard! But we got there.             The next era was making them easier to fly. I think we all got there. The next era is not             flying them at all — making it so that their intelligence can be so profound that you can             almost not care about the vehicle itself."

3D Robotics Solo drone with high resolution Hero 4 camera (Click Image To Enlarge)

Life after gravity

For all the time I spend with Solo — I visited the team several times over the past six months, flying prototypes in Austin and Berkeley — I never see a true production model. Even days before Solo is set to premiere, the team is still refining the software and hardware. Guinn pays fanatical attention to the product, and he rattles off requests to the software team throughout my visits. ("He's killing me," one executive laments.)

In my tests, Solo performs mostly as we would hope. But Guinn fixates on a small tremor in the gimbal that might make captured footage less than butter-smooth, and while it's quite windy for my last flight, I can't help but notice that Solo sometimes has trouble staying still. Instead, it floats around in a roughly 3-foot cube, and I wonder how that might affect the footage I shoot. Meanwhile, it's hard to see what I'm shooting, because the glare is so bad on the iPad Mini. (Not Solo's fault, of course, but it does affect the user experience.)

FLYING SOLO IS A BLAST

Flying Solo is a blast, and yet I’m still not sure I see the regular use case for myself. Getting great shots requires travel, and bringing Solo with me on vacation will mean checking one more bag and lugging it around. There are only so many drone-shot selfies a person needs, no matter how fun they are to shoot. So while I’m convinced Solo will make it easier and more fun for novices to fly drones, I’m skeptical of how much it can broaden the market for drones beyond hobbyists and filmmakers.

Whether or not there’s space for three players in the consumer drone market or not, 3DR isn’t content to remain in third place. The Guinnmeister may not want to talk about his days at DJI — about the fact that the Solo, had he stayed at the company, would have been the Phantom 3 that was announced last week — but there's no doubt that he wants to win. He says.  

    "We’re an order of magnitude less well known than our bigger competitor  But I think that’s all     gonna change really soon."

He notes that Solo is launching in 10 countries and will be available at thousands of big-box retail locations, featured in giant kiosks with flight simulators.  He says  

    "The world is about to know who 3DR is."

COMMENTARY:   Took the opportunity to look at the DJI Phantom 3, and it is my opinion that the 3D Robotics Solo drone is going to give the Phantom 3 a run for its money.  Both drone makers incorporate the "Come Home" capability and use iPads to view what the drone attached to the camera is looking it.  However, the Phantom 3 lacks the one-touch button "FLY" button or auto-pilot capability of the 3DR.  A big plus for the Phantom 3 is its 4K ultra-HD camera which is slowly becoming the new standard for video filming.  The 3DR Solo incorporates the GoPro Hero 4 camera that takes 12 MP stills and can shoot video at 1080p and 120fps.  

In my opinion, the DJI Phatom 3 is designed to be marketed to professional filmmakers while the 3DR Solo is designed for the amateur photographer/videographer.  At the $1,000 starting price poiint, the 3DR Solo should do well with entry-level users and photographers.  Either way, both are designed to meet the needs of their target markets and have features that will appeal to those markets.  Checkout this video of the DJI Phamtom 3 and decide for yourself.

 

Courtesy of an article dated April 13, 2015 appearing in The Verge

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/13/8394359/3d-robotics-solo-drone-quadcopter-gopro

WATCH A YOUNG CHILD AGE INTO AN OLD WOMAN BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES

Danielle as a young child. (Click Image To Enlarge)

A FIVE-MINUTE VIDEO SHOWS A 70-YEAR AGING PROCESS, AND HOW BEAUTY IS SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO US AT EVERY STAGE OF OUR LIVES.

Do me a favor. Danielle is a slow burn, but it needs to be watched in a single go. Set aside five minutes. Hit the play button. Watch a woman age from a little girl into an old woman, so imperceptibly that you're not even sure where the transitions occur. But don't skip around. Danielle's stillness is a paean to the grace of aging, and how it doesn't come upon us in fits and starts, but atom by atom, deepening beauty without eradicating it.

 

It's a remarkable work, but even more remarkable is the story of howDanielle was made.

A commercial video editor working primarily on music videos and commercials in Los Angeles, Anthony Cerniello made Danielle in response to an exhaustion with the constant franticness expected of him professionally. Cerniello tells me.

"I'm always asked to cut things in a very energetic, fast paced style, but my personal preference is to slow things down, to seek calmness, peace, and quiet.  I was burnt out. I wanted to make something with no edits that would give me a broad canvas to tell a story in an unconventional way. I had also been thinking a lot about death for the previous few years.”

The inspiration for Danielle came to Cerniello when he visited the real life Danielle at her home for Thanksgiving, accompanied by a photographer friend, Keith Sirchio. Although he had known Danielle since high school, Cerniello had only sporadically kept in touch with her over the years. Cerniello says. 

"She had a face that I was always drawn to, I don't know why.  She was always nice to me, though, even when she probably didn't know why I was bugging her."

While he was at her house, surrounded by her large extended family, Cerniello decided to take portraits of her family members with a Hasselblad.

“Danielle knew why I was doing it, but I don’t think her family members knew or cared.”

Cerniello then headed back to New York and scanned the negatives in a drum scanner at the U.N. He imported these files into Adobe After Effects in order to blend them together.

Danielle as a young teen (Click Image To Enlarge)

Cerniello explains.

"From the very beginning, I knew I wanted the procession to be barely perceptible.  I picked the subjects that looked the most alike, looking mostly at their bone structure, but also their age.”

Once he had the correct order, Cerniello created a morph between each successive "Danielle," capturing in the process something of the slow inexorability of aging itself.

But the finished result was still just a collection of film stills of Danielle and her family, albeit stills that blended into one another. Cerniello wanted more: He wanted the aging gestalt of Danielle's bloodline to live and breathe. To accomplish this, he took the render and wrapped it around a 3-D model in 3D Studio Max to give the head depth. He then asked animator Edmund Earle to bring the model to life, adding blinking, head articulation, camera movement and some subtle expression changes to the film.

Danielle as a older, mature adult in her 60's and 70's (Click Image To Enlarge)

The visuals are only part of what makes Danielle such a haunting portrait of the aging process's own still beauty, though. What really sells it is the score.  Cerniello says.  

"When Danielle was completely silent, it felt almost like a medical film.  For my original idea, I dreamed of this incredibly layered symphony of her life: Danielle might be an opera singer in her '20s, and snippets of opera would creep in, and then her dreams would disappear and take over."

But in the end, Cerniello rejected the idea. It felt too specific a narrative to impose on such an evocative piece. Instead, he ended up turning to his friend Mark Reveley to create an ambient score from analog pedals.

Just 24 hours after it was uploaded to the web, Danielle was watched over half a million times. Perhaps what draws us into it is that it is life-affirming. It would be so easy to make a film that shows a young girl age into an old woman, but Danielle shows the truth about beauty: that beauty is something that belongs to all of us at every stage of our lives. Age doesn't ravage Danielle, nor does it kill her. It captures within her features the beauty of a life well-lived. And at the end of her time-lapsed life? Danielle smiles.

COMMENTARY:   I almost felt like quitting while watching the video, but you have to be patient, and watch the video, as Danielle slowly ages.  It's quite a feat as to how Cerniello did it.

Courtesy of an article dated September 16, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design

MIXBIT, THE NEW APP FROM YOUTUBE'S FOUNDERS, AIMS TO TURN EVERYONE INTO A FILMMAKER

Steve Chen and Chad Hurley co-founded YouTube, and just launched MixBit, an iPhone app that let's you create professional-looking videos without a lot of fuss (Click Image To Enlarge)

WITH YOUTUBE, CHAD HURLEY AND STEVE CHEN OF MIXBIT MADE PUBLISHING VIDEOS EASY. NOW THEY WANT TO MAKE IT JUST AS EASY TO CREATE THEM.

When Google wanted to boost the quality of YouTube’s content, it gave out $5 million in grants to select creators. YouTube cofounders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, who sold the service to Google in 2006, are now tackling the same problem, but with a different philosophy.

They hope that a new app they are launching on Thursday, called MixBit, will make shooting quality video scalable and accessible to everyone.

MixBit let's you record videos using your iPhone simply by pressing and holding down a button on the app (Click Image To Enlarge)

MixBit let's you organize your video clips anyway you want simply by pressing them and dragging where you want them in the sequnce of the video (Click Image To Enlarge)

MixBit provides simple editing tools to give your finished video a professional look without a lot of fuss (Click Image To Enlarge)

Hurley told Fast Company. 

“Unfortunately I think YouTube is going down the route of rewarding the select few around content creation, be it with partnerships or with ways of funding original content.  I can understand, it’s great to stimulate the community and make money available to them. But I feel that’s a more traditional approach to solving the problem. It’s basically replicating the studio model...I’m looking for something that doesn’t necessarily alienate any group of people, but gives them all equal access.”

Click Image To Enlarge

MixBit provides editing tools that allow you to crop and align your video scenes so they are centered (Click Image To Enlarge)

MixBit allows you to add text and captions to your videos to explain what you just shot (Click Image To Enlarge)

That apparently includes people who never shoot any video. With MixBit, as with Instagram video and Vine, users touch their phones’ screens to take multiple video clips that the app combines into one video. But only MixBit allows other people to use those clips, if they’re public, in their own videos.

After the Fourth of July, for instance, someone might search for other people's fireworks shots to use in their own video of fireworks around the country. Whoever views that video can easily browse through the clips that compile it, grab the ones they like for their own videos, and see how many times each has been reused. It turns creating video into a public, collaborative process. Hurley explains. 

“Content begets content.  It’s this idea that the more content is created on the site, enables more content to be created.”

 

MixBit is the second product of AVOS Systems (the name stands for “audio visual operating system”), a company Hurley and Chen founded after leaving YouTube. The company's first public move was to acquire bookmarking tool Delicious in 2011, and its first product was a Vine clone released earlier this year that was designed to work well in China. Hurley describes the goal of his company, which has teams working in San Mateo, Beijing, and Dunedin, New Zealand, as innovating media creation and discovery.

With this latest app, he hopes to make video creation more like YouTube made video distribution. He says. 

"I love video.  I love the power of video. The ability for people to express their thoughts and feelings through video...I guess I’m just somewhat frustrated that people have the means to distribute their content, they have the tools to capture it, but it’s a hard thing to do."

 

Part of making good video easier includes long-game parameters.  While Instagram supports videos only up to 15 seconds long and Vine cuts its users off at a six-second loop, MixBit videos can be as long as an hour (each clip within that hour can be up to 16 seconds long). The service also allows users to save and edit their work, so videos can span an entire vacation or event. Eventually Hurley says he hopes to add features for storyboarding and scriptwriting.

But as most popular video apps target our short attention spans, is there really an appetite for MixBit's shareable feeds of long, quality video?

Hurley’s heard this one before and said.  

“I guess it just depends on how much time you’re trying to kill at work.” 

COMMENTARY:    PC Mag reviewed MixBit and this is what they found and how they rated this new app designed for the iPhone.   

MixBit is no Vine, though there are similarities. You still hold your finger on the screen to record short video clips (Vine's 6-second clip-recording limit is increased to 16), but with the newer MixBit, you can actually do a little editing and add together clips for up to a full hour of movie enjoyment. MixBit more closely resembles a less-well-known app called Krowds, in that it adds the ability to collaboratively combine video clips from multiple shooters. The new video app comes from folks with some serious video cred: YouTube cofounders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. Let's see if it lives up to the billing.

Setup

MixBit is available on the iTunes App Store; it runs on the iPhone 3GS and up, and is optimized for the iPhone 5, but iPad users will have to either view it in a small or a 2X zoomed window.   The app was installed on ab iPhone 4S for this review, as well as on one of PCMag Labs' iPhone 5 testers and one of our iPads. As with most apps tested of late, at setup the app asks permission to send you notifications and to determine your device's location. After you've dealt with those requests, the app launches into a quick tour. 

Surprisingly (and at first refreshingly), the app doesn't require you to sign up for an online account; unfortunately, you can't fully use the app's service without an account, so this turns out to be a minus. And once you do figure out that you need to register, it's not a simple matter of tapping a Facebook or Twitter authorization button; you have to enter an email address and password, and wait for an activation email.

Using the MixBit App

MixBit's interface has a polished look, yet stills feels like a version 1: its workflow is not particularly intuitive, in spite of the tutorial. The app suggests you shoot in landscape for full quality, and if you do shoot holding the camera in portrait orientation, it crops the image to a wide aspect ratio. Another video app, Directr, is even more strict, only letting you shoot in landscape.

To shoot in the smaller portrait format, you press and hold the large red button, but when you're in the better landscape view, you hold your finger on the screen as with Vine. You can shoot with either the front or back-facing camera, show or hide a grid overlay, and turn the camera light on if you want. When I shot video in the app, my clips were limited to 16 seconds—a full 10-second bonus over Vine. The screen flashes to tell you that your 16 seconds is up.

Like Yahoo's recent Qwiki app, MixBit lets you add any video clips from your camera roll to your compilations together with footage shot within the app. Clips added from my iPhone's camera roll could be longer than the 16-second limit for shooting within the app, but when I went to publish later, I got an error message telling me to go back and trim any clips longer than 16 seconds. A "back" button would be helpful for this, since my only option was to hit the x to close the Publish page. Another unhelpful detail is that the second readout above each clip is for the whole compilation length, not the individual clip, so it's hard to know which ones are too long.

After shooting, you hit a play arrow, which takes you to your new Project page. Here, you can trim clips using the iPhone's own video editing capability, add or shoot more clips, drag them to different spots in the compilation, or delete them. MixBit doesn't offer any video enhancements like those you get in Viddy or Instagram, beyond simple trimming and re-ordering—there are no filters, no anti-shake, no time-stretch, or even brightness and contrast adjustments. It is, however, just as easy to create a stop-motion video in MixBit as in Vine—that's app's only video trick.

One instance of good workflow design is the forward arrow on this page, which takes you to the Publish page. Unfortunately, that's not matched by a back arrow. On the Publish page, you have three privacy options: Public, Draft, or Limited. You can also add a title, hashtags, and location. You can optionally tweet or post the video to you Facebook wall. One longish video took so long to publish that I simply canceled trying.

MixBit on the Web

Unlike Vine, MixBit features a robust Web presence, where you can engage in all the social video activities that are relegated to the phone in Twitter's video app. You can browse featured and recent uploaded videos, share them to Facebook etc., and even create your own compilations using their component clips. That's where the "mix" comes in, and it's a big part of the app/service's appeal. A mix can include up to 256 clips for a maximum length of about an hour.

Community features were lacking compared with Instagram, Vine, or Viddy, however: I couldn't like or comment on a video, and there's no concept of following or adding contacts. I couldn't even see a username for posted videos.

I also ran into some odd webpage layout issues when viewing in full-screen, and videos occasionally stopped playing without warning. Also, site pages containing video clips took long to load, even on a fast connection. So clearly it's early going for the site, which will hopefully be beefed up as it grows. One plus was that you can skim through video scenes by moving the cursor over the thumbnails, à la iMovie.

The New Video App Sensation?

MixBit opens up a lot more video creativity options than Vine, but it's definitely more complicated than Twitter's dead-simple 6-second social video app. The lack of Instagram-like filters detracts from this creative potential, but the ability to use others' uploaded clips adds to it. It does indeed take YouTube a step forward, at least in making it easier to create compilations. For a simpler but still powerful social video app, check out our Editors' Choice, Viddy.

Courtesy of an article dated August 8, 2013 appearing in Fast Company and an article dated August 7, 2013 appearing in PC Magazine

HOW A PHOTOGRAPHER REDISCOVERED AND VISITED THE CRUMBLING REMAINS OF THE TATOOINE MOVIE SET FROM THE FILM STAR WARS

A PHOTOGRAPHER FINDS ABANDONED SETS USED IN THE STAR WARSFILMS CRUMBLING IN THE DESERT.

In Star Wars (or Episode IV if you want to be like that), Luke Skywalker spends the first 15 minutes whining about his misfortune for having been born on Tatooine. He can’t go to Beggar’s Canyon to shoot womp rats with pals because he has to work his uncle’s moisture farm. Then he has to clean the new droids before suffering through a perfunctory family meal that ends in a storm-out, his ego bruised and dreams momentarily crushed.

An image from Rä di Martino’s 'Every World’s A Stage' set among the remnants of films sets used in Star Wars (Click Image To Enlarge)

The second half of 1 diptych from "Every World’s A Stage." (Click Image To Enlarge)

The photo set consists of 3 diptychs, with 2 black-and-white anagogic prints depicting the same subject but from different angles (Click Image To Enlarge)

Of course, fate (or destiny, in Lucas’s lexicon) would provide Luke with an escape. The cost would be tragic, and the 17-year old Jedi-to-be would never see his home again. Neither would the filmmakers. Lucas and his crew left the Lars Homestead set to rot after filming wrapped more than 35 years ago. In that time, the domed shell of the homestead sat unprotected from the desert winds, its location known to only a few locals. That is, until recently, when Luke’s erstwhile home was rediscovered by New York-based photographer Rä di Martino.

From "Every World's A Stage" (Click Image To Enlarge)

The Lars homestead - From Rä di Martino’s "No More Stars," which documents the ruins of Luke Skywalker’s home on the fictional planet Tatooine (Click Image To Enlarge)

The sets were abandoned after filming wrapped. Located near Tozeur in central Tunisia, near Algeria, the alien structures are virtually unknown by locals, and some can only be found with coordinates (Click Image To Enlarge)

She found it by accident, she tells Co. Design. A few years ago, when Di Martino was working on a project on the Chott El Jerid, a salt lake in Tunisia, she was scanning the site on Google Earth.

"I saw a tourist photo on Google Earth of a ruin used for the Star Wars films that was attached to the location."

She tracked the structure to somewhere near Tozeur, an oasis city in the country’s central region close to the Algerian border.

Di Martino spotted the sets in the Tunisian desert while scanning Google Earth (Click Image To Enlarge)

Di Martino calls the sets "strange archeological sites," fortuitously preserved by sand and a hot, arid climate (Click Image To Enlarge)

She traveled to the site and documented what had happened to the homestead in Luke’s absence (Click Image To Enlarge)

Tozeur and the surrounding region, it turns out, have served as the backdrop to many Hollywood’s memorable epics, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, another Lucas romp, and The English Patient. Yet, there’s little glamour to be excavated at these abandoned sites. They sit in perfect stillness, at the crest of the Sahara Desert, eaten away by dust and sand.

"No More Stars" (Click Image To Enlarge)

When she traveled to Tunisia in September 2010, Di Martino had only a printout of a satellite image with imprecise markers indicating where the mysterious ruin was supposed to be. Upon arriving, however, she found it nearly impossible to track it down.

"I ended up having to ask some frontier guards close by [in Tozeur] and showed them pictures of the site."

Luckily, one of the guards recognized it and delivered her to the doorstep of the Lars Homestead.

Di Martino found the fictional birthplace of the Rebellion’s savior in tatters. She preserved Luke’s humble digs for posterity in a series of photographs entitled "No More Stars." Di Martino discovered several more Star Wars sets, which she documented in "Every World’s a Stage." In the latter, Di Martino’s lens finds a nomad in the rubble of Mos Espa, a circle of mud-hewn habitations--really, cement-covered MDF--whose walls are festooned with coiled aluminum probosces signifying high-tech gadgetry. Passing through these non-ruins, di Martino says, was surprisingly moving.

"These places have existed only in our imaginations for so long for a lot of us, yet here they were,only now biologically decayed."

COMMENTARY:   I wished Di Martino had posted the Google Earth coordinates so I could locate the Tatooine movie set site.  I think it's incredible that it is still is fairly good condition in spite of the sand storms of the Sahara Desert.

Courtesy of an article dated May 8, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design 

 

DISNEY DIRECTOR JOHN KAHRS COMBINES 2D AND 3D ANIMATION AND WINS AN OSCAR FOR BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM "PAPERMAN"

Paperman is an Oscar-winning short, directed by John Kahrs (Click Image To Enlarge) 

DIRECTOR JOHN KAHRS HAD A VISION FOR HIS ANIMATED SHORTPAPERMAN. THERE WAS JUST ONE PROBLEM. THE TECHNOLOGY TO MAKE IT DIDN’T EXIST YET.

A Pixar film is a beautiful thing. Long after Toy Story’s 3-D novelty wore off, artists refined their techniques, so Up could make us cry. But in these computer-generated worlds full of perfect shapes and gradients, we inevitably lost some of that old Disney magic--the nuance of incredible, hand-drawn lines.  John Kahrs thought.

“Isn’t there a way we can bring that hand of an artist back?” 

 

At the time, he was working on his storyboards for Paperman--what has since become Disney’s 2013 Oscar-winning animated short. It was going to be “an urban fairy tale in a beautiful world of light and shadow,” showcasing the latest in CG technology like global illumination and radiocity (light-based physics).  But another thought had been haunting him. Working on  Tangled  alongside legendary 2-D animator Glen Keane (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast), Kahrs watched Keane sketch on top of the CG animations during the production process. Software allowed Keane to reshape 3-D figures with his pen strokes, but ultimately, his beautiful lines were lost in the process. It seemed like such a waste.

It tells the story of any two people who share a moment on a train platform, only to never see one another again (Click Image To Enlarge)

Late in the storyboarding process, Keane’s vision for Paperman was born anew. What if it could be a hybrid of the old and new schools of animation? What if it could be 2-D and 3-D at the same time?

But, without spoiling anything, I have a feeling that things may go different, thanks to a healthy dose of Disneyfication (Click Image To Enlarge)

Kahrs began investigating that possibility in the only place he could, Disney’s R&D department. He lucked out when he met software engineer Brian Whited, who had already been working on a new piece of animation software called Meander that specialized in 2-D interpolation (using software to reason out gaps in sketched animations). With modification and refinement, it just might work.

Watch the nuance of each frame. With 117 shots in the film, Kahrs’s team focused on the composition of each shot (Click Image To Enlarge)

Keane says. 

“You hear people talking a lot about innovation--innovation comes out of necessity.  The necessity in this case was we had to figure out how to have a CG underlayer that dragged these drawn lines on top of it.”

 

Eventually, Meander proved capable of stunning feats. Today, an animator can draw a frown on a protagonist’s hand in one frame, then, several frames later, draw a smile. Meander can both track the position of that hand in 3-D space, and it can fill in the gaps, turning that frown into a smile, naturally. But much of Keane’s emphasis was tweaking the feel. In classic Disney animation, the character outlines do something called boiling, as the imperfections in cel after cel stack up--and they’re important, subconscious cues to the experience of animation feeling authentic. 

Also, aside from the narrative plays on light and shadow, each frame has hints of hand-drawn animation (Click Image To Enlarge)

Keane says. 

“It’s part of the human hand.  Those were the sort of small details that we were big on pushing one way or another.”

Following months of preliminary testing, the team had developed two test shots that they thought were compelling. The last step would be to take a meeting with John Lasseter and the rest of Disney studio leadership and sell them on the aesthetic.

What you see is actually built on an entirely new 2-D and 3-D animation system called Meander, which layers drawings on top of 3-D figures (Click Image To Enlarge)

Keane recounts.

“I think John was a little bit skeptical. He’s a smart guy. He’s seen all these painterly effects. His concern was, does it get in the way of the storytelling, or is it a way of immersing you in this world and telling the story of the characters? Once he saw these tests, they all sat up and noticed that this wasn’t just some cheap trick.”

When your brain tries to dissect each frame, reasoning how someone can possibly draw on 3-D in 2-D, you’re bound for a mental meltdown (Click Image To Enlarge)

Indeed, Paperman is amongst the most stunning animations we’ve ever seen. It combines new aesthetics with standing traditions, marrying the tangibility of CG with the human grit of a pen on paper. And in a poetic turn of technology, it was actually the 2-D animators who got to put the finishing touches on each frame of Paperman. All of those beautiful lines that started the animation process would end it, too.

But ultimately, if you just soak in each frame for the visual paradox that it is, you’ll really enjoy the film (Click Image To Enlarge)

Check out all of this year’s Oscar-nominated short films at Co.Create.

COMMENTARY:   The "Paperman" is one sweet short animation film.  No wonder it won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.  Disney and Director John Kahrs were able to marry 2D and 3D animation into the same film, and the result is just beautiful.

Disney Director John Kahrs (centere) accepts the Academy Award for Best Short Animation Film for "Paperman" (Click Image To Enlarge)

Courtesy of an article dated February 22, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design

 

THE 85TH ACADEMY AWARDS HOSTED BY SETH MACFARLANE, THE FULL VIDEO AND WHO WON

If you missed the telecast of the 85th Academy Awards hosted by Seth MacFarlane, here's the complete show thanks to the folks at HULU.com.

 

You can also view The Oscars on the Oscars website.

List of the 85th annual Academy Award winners announced Sunday in Los Angeles:

• Best Picture: "Argo."
• Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, "Lincoln."
• Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, "Silver Linings Playbook."
• Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, "Django Unchained."
• Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, "Les Miserables."
• Directing: Ang Lee, "Life of Pi."
• Foreign Language Film: "Amour."
• Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio, "Argo."
• Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, "Django Unchained."
• Animated Feature Film: "Brave."
• Production Design: "Lincoln."
• Cinematography: "Life of Pi."
• Sound Mixing: "Les Miserables."
• Sound Editing (tie): "Skyfall," ''Zero Dark Thirty."
• Original Score: "Life of Pi," Mychael Danna.
• Original Song: "Skyfall" from "Skyfall," Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth.
• Costume: "Anna Karenina."
• Documentary Feature: "Searching for Sugar Man."
• Documentary (short subject): "Inocente."
• Film Editing: "Argo."
• Makeup and Hairstyling: "Les Miserables."
• Animated Short Film: "Paperman."
• Live Action Short Film: "Curfew."
• Visual Effects: "Life of Pi."

Courtesy of Fox News, The Oscars.com and Hollywood Life

MIT VIDEO BREAKTHROUGH COULD GIVE BRANDS SIGHT, SOUND, EVEN MORE MOTION, AND HELP AD AGENCIES CREATE BETTER ADS

Software created by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology amplifies variations in video that are imperceptible to the naked eye, making it possible to exaggerate tiny motions. More telling, it could provide greater credibility for products.

MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory graduate student Michael Rubinstein designed the software, along with recent alumni Hao-Yu Wu, Eugene Shih and professors William Freeman, Fredo Durand and John Guttag. The researchers initially intended it to amplify color changes, but in their experiments found it amplified motion as well. The software makes visible the vibrations of individual guitar strings, or the ability to see someone's pulse as the skin reddens and pales with the flow of blood.  The new technology could assist online agency executives in creating more attention-grabbing advertising based on MIT's research on amplified emotions.

 

Eric Gulino, an ad executive at Skiver Advertising, said having the ability to see change without computer-generated graphics could increase the credibility of products because it would not require computer-generated art. He said it is not likely to revolutionize the way agencies create content, but it will open the door to demonstrate things not easily communicated and give consumers a whole new appreciation for products.

Take a car manufacturer, for example.  Gulino said. "Maybe the manufacturer had trouble communicating the effectiveness of technology in the car that takes over just before a crash,""The seatbelts might tighten. The brakes are applied and the airbag deployed. It's difficult to show it in real-time. It just looks like a crash."

Rather than a simulation, the manufacturer would show the event as it happens, giving the brand more credibility. Simulation would have been the only way to demonstrate a high-speed crash. Gulino said. 

"This technology opens up new avenues for creative folks.  It removes the fog from a consumer's perspective."

In a set of experiments, the software amplifies the movement of shadows in one frame of a street sequence photographed only twice, at an interval of about 15 seconds. Amplifying motion rather than color requires a different processing. The smaller the motion, the better it works.

Most of the research has been around imaging and monitoring medical conditions, such as in video baby monitors for the home, so that the respiration of sleeping infants would be clearly visible.

Agencies rarely work with universities like MIT. GroupM has begun to look into the idea, but doesn't work with researchers at the university yet. The ad industry already has a host of tools to create special effects, but even Needham Analyst Laura Martin agrees that

"Academic research demonstrates that diversity maximizes economic value."

While Martin refers to the TV ecosystem, her report on "The Future of TV: The Invisible Hand" highlights the need for more creativity in TV and video content.

COMMENTARY:    MIT's technical abstract describes the new video amplification technology as follows:  

"Our goal is to reveal temporal variations in videos that are difficult or impossible to see with the naked eye and display them in an indicative manner. Our method, which we call Eulerian Video Magnification, takes a standard video sequence as input, and applies spatial decomposition, followed by temporal filtering to the frames. The resulting signal is then amplified to reveal hidden information. Using our method, we are able to visualize the flow of blood as it fills the face and also to amplify and reveal small motions. Our technique can run in real time to show phenomena occurring at temporal frequencies selected by the user."   

Click Image To Enlarge

You can download a PDF file of the technical whitepaper describing MIT's Eulerian Video Magnification technology by clicking HERE. 

Courtesy of an article dated June 22, 2012 appearing in MediaPost Publications Online Media Daily

MAKE LEGO MOVIES THE EASY WAY WITH THE NEW MOVIE MAKER APP

A new app for Lego allows users to create stop-motion movies with DC superhero characters, edit them, and share them--all on an iPhone.

There are few things the Internet likes better than a Lego-based video. This has not gone unnoticed by the people at Lego, who have just released an app that lets users of all ages create mini movies based on the toy.

 

San Francisco-based agency Pereira & O’Dell worked with Lego to launch the DC Super Hero Movie Maker app, which is now available on iTunes. The app helps kids (and adult nerds) pretend to be Tim Burton and create stop-motion superhero movies on their iPhones.

Pereira & O’Dell account supervisor Izzy Weberbauer says.

"We wanted to create an unique experience that helps bridge the gap between the digital world and the physical world of Lego," 

The agency worked closely with the Lego Super Heroes brand team to develop the concept and design of the app and brought in Portland mobile development and design studio Uncorked to bring the idea to life.

The app turns your phone into a functional edit bay, where you can trim down scenes starring DC Universe Super Heroes, and add title cards and music. The odds are you’ll do a better job of it than Joel Schumacher did with Batman & Robin. And since you won’t be ashamed of the finished product, you can use the app’s easy sharing functionality to show it off.

COMMENTARY:    The LEGO® Super Hero Movie Maker  by The LEGO Group was released April 18, 2012 and is available for FREE downloading through iTunes.  Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad.Requires iOS 4.3 or later.  

The LEGO DC Super Heroes Movie Maker iPhone app helps your child bring their LEGO DC Universe Super Heroes come to life.  

LEGO DC Universe Super Heroes are sold separately (Click Image To Enlarge)

This fun, kid-friendly app brings the whole family together to create a LEGO stop motion movie on the iPhone. Simple tools and guides make it easy to shoot, edit, even score your movie with music. Add one of the customizable title cards and share it online and who knows, you may have the next summer blockbuster in your hands…literally!

LEGO DC Super Heroes Movie Maker App Features:

• Add & delete frames to your movie
• Choose from 5 different soundtracks
• Add a color filter to the camera
• Customize one of 11 different title LEGO Super Heroes cards
• Save your movie to your camera roll then share with your friends

 

Click Images To Enlarge

I wasn't aware of this, but The LEGO Group has several other iPhone apps available through iTunes:

• Life of George (Free) - The world’s first interactive game combining real LEGO bricks with apps for your iPhone/iPod Touch.  Rating:  4.5 stars.
• LEGO Photo (Free) - What would your child’s smile look like made of LEGO® bricks? Or your pet hamster?  Capture your child’s moments of brilliance in LEGO bricks.  Rating: 5 stars.
• LEGO® DUPLO® Farm Friends (Free) - LEGO® DUPLO® is a new toy every day designed for boys and girls aged 2-5.   Let your child explore the DUPLO farm through the Farm application – there is so much to explore from animal sounds to the big farm machines. Rating:  4 stars.
• LEGO® Creationary (Free) - How quickly can you guess what’s being built from LEGO bricks?   “Roll” the LEGO Dice to find out which of the 4 randomly selected categories you’ll guessing: nature, vehicles, buildings or things.  The game starts building an object from that category out of LEGO bricks, and you have to guess which of the four possible answers is correct by tapping the illustration that you think matches what is being built. The faster you guess correctly, the more points you earn. The more you play, the more difficult the game becomes. Guess incorrectly and the game ends.  The Creationary board game is an award-winning build-and-guess LEGO game that challenges the imagination, creativity, building and guessing skills of you, your family and friends with more than 300 bricks and accessories. With the LEGO Creationary app, you can guess what’s being built on iPad, iPhone & iTouch! Rating: 4 stars.
• LEGO ® Minifigures Collector (Free) - How to play?  Slide the LEGO (R) piece to get the minifigures parts rolling. Match all the 3 pieces of a LEGO Minifigure (head, torso and legs) and make it a part of your personal collection!  Rating:  4+ stars.

Courtesy of an article dated April 21, 2012 appearing in Fast Company Create

HOW OTOY’S LIGHTSTAGE DIGITAL CAPTURE, RENDERING AND COMPRESSION TECHNOLOGY ALLOWS ACTORS TO STAY YOUNG FOREVER

Marilyn Monroe in her famous dress skirt scene from the film "The Seven Year Itch" (Click Image To Enlarge)

L.A.'s Otoy promises a processing and image capture breakthrough that will allow actors to play their current age indefinitely. But the tech also opens up a range of possibilities for other image-intensive applications. If Otoy’s founders are right, Star Trek’s holodeck isn’t far behind.

Legendary talent agent Ari Emanuel, who is encouraging his WME clients to digitally scan their faces with a technology that allows them to act in roles at their current age for the rest of their life says.

"They never get old." 

While the technology to digitally archive a celebrity’s face and overlay it on a younger actor has been around for years, the expensive storage and computing power necessary to render the mammoth data files limited the technology to the fleeting needs of big-budget blockbusters. Now, Otoy, a hidden gem of a startup tucked away in Los Angeles, has solved the processing and storage problem with a breakthrough in processing power, making it economically viable to archive the appearances of actors en masse in their own private bank of youth.

How it Works

Capturing a realistic representation of a face isn’t as simple as snapping a picture in good light. says Otoy’s Academy Award-winning technologist, Tim Hawkins says.

"Skin is a unique material.  It’s a little bit like a cloud,--a mesh of tissue and blood vessels reflecting light in a way that gives facial complexion a textured luminosity, over patches of bumpy skin and subtle shadows. Indeed, it’s the lack of detail that gives CGI-created faces a suspicious sense of unrealistic perfection, tipping them into the dreaded "uncanny valley."

Otoy’s solution is to bask a human face in 360 degrees of bright light, which allows a computer to recreate the effects of light at any angle and any intensity of luminosity, from an early-morning sunrise to a full moon. Actors step into a large hollow sphere, surrounded by dozens of high-wattage bulbs. Six high-resolution professional cameras stationed in four corners at eye-level snap photos, as a series of light patterns is projected onto the actor’s face. The surreal, eye-tearing experience only takes about five minutes to capture a blank stare expression (see a video of me unsuccessfully trying to keep my eyes still during the process below).

 

The magic of that capture technology, LightStage, is how a single actor, Armie Hammer, played both Winklevoss twins simultaneously in the Facebook biography, The Social Network (see before and after photos of Hammer’s LightStage-captured face overlayed on his body-double below).

Click Image To Enlarge

Should an actor want to express more than just a blank stare, the LightStage can capture facial expressions of all contortions. Running through the full catalog of human expressions, the Facial Action Coding System, users act out every possible dramatic and silly expression, as LightStage captures facial muscles stretched in enough ways that a computer can "puppeteer" any emotion in the future.

A Brilliant New Technology

The prodigy behind the technology is Otoy CEO, Jules Urbach, a self-taught computer programmer who designed the software that super-charges a cheap graphics card with the rendering power of a supercomputer. Instead of processing tasks one a time, Otoy’s software opens up the computing pipeline like a multi-lane highway, permitting multiple tasks simultaneously (what programmers refer to as "parallel processing"). Without Otoy’s tech, a supercomputer "typically spends dozens of hours per machine to render just a single [frame] on films likeTransformers," explains Otoy President, Alissa Grainger, who first caught up with Fast Company at Singularity University’s executive training conference in Los Angeles. At Otoy’s ever-expanding headquarters in downtown L.A., I witnessed Transformers-quality rendering in real time on a iPad, streaming from their cloud servers over a Wi-Fi connection.

Even with this impressive improvement in processing power, tech-savvy readers will rightly call out that even a blazing fast Internet connection couldn’t possibly download the huge data file of a cinema-quality image in real time. True. So, Urbach also designed a new data compression algorithm that scrunches the data "several hundreds" times smaller than, for instance, what Sony Image Works used to store CGI from the Spider-Man movies, according to Grainger.

Otoy previously made headlines when it proved what was thought to be impossible, streaming an Xbox game seamlessly between different types of devices.

 

The implications of this technology are far-reaching. For instance, Urbach estimates that his compressed streaming algorithm could cut Netflix bandwidth needs by roughly half. Given that Netflix hogs up to 32% all all U.S. bandwidth, Otoy could potentially free up a sizable chunk of Internet, if it were to partner with the biggest names in video streaming.

A Business of Possibilities

With the processing and storage problem solved, Otoy’s hole-in-the-wall LightStage studio in Burbank has already become a conveyor belt of A-list celebrities and athletes seeking its digital fountain of youth. Though Urbach is insistent that facial scans be the intellectual property of each individual person, clients still need Otoy’s patented technology to store and stream their digital doubles in manageable chunks. As a result, Otoy has, overnight, become the only business in town for this kind of service, and has attracted some of Silicon Valley’s top investors for a trip down South.

But, for the Otoy team, the real magic of digital doubles is yet to be realized. Legendary actors such as Tom Hanks would be able to play younger parts years after receiving their Medicare cards. Young actors could licenses out their likeness to magazines, rather than have to churn out photo shoots and profiles during the grueling promotion of an upcoming film. Even deceased actors could be digitally resurrected.

Otoy’s biggest business potential may not be in serving the Hollywood elite, but in democratizing access to supercomputing power for the growing industry of web, low-budget, and amateur filmmaking. The company recently acquired a popular rendering software, Octane, and revealed to Fast Company that it is offering up its LightStage data and real-time rendering power as a cloud service, complete with plug-ins for the widely used production software of Autodesk, including Autodesk Maya.

Ultimately, the dream for Otoy’s founder is a Star Trek-like holodeck, where a 3-D virtual environment looks as realistic as the analog world. Such a breakthrough would require more than just LightStage. Otoy is tackling this dream one chunk at a time, and we’ll have more details soon as it releases technology that could disrupt the entertainment, app, PC, and video game industries. Stay tuned.

COMMENTARY:   Otoy's LightStage digital capturing and data and real-time rendering is quite an incredible technological achievement.  The above videos didn't really demonstrate what the final product looks like.  Here's one from Siggraph 2009 showing an individual performer being scanned, then his digitized image "duplicated" several times over, and the image rendered onto a real-world scene.   The likeness from the original individual is quite astounding.  

 

To be able to extend the youthfulness of an actor and use his likeness in films twenty years from now would be quite incredible.  Imagine if Otoy LightStage technology were available 50 years ago, actors like Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Robert Redford, James Stewart, Kim Novak, Paul Newman, Gregory Peck, John Wayne, Steve McQueen, Gene Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor and many other of my favorite actors from that era could appear in today's films and appear just like they looked back in their prime.  I don't know how their voices would be duplicated, but it would be a welcome change from some of the actors that appear in some of the films of today.     

Courtesy of an article dated April 3, 2012 appearing in Fast Company Create