Streaming video will fight internet piracy claims Quickflix CEO
Quickflix CEO Chris Taylor has claimed that the advent of the company’s streaming video service will impact internet piracy.
The service is the first to the Australian online movie market with streaming content, initially to Sony devices.
Taylor told Encore: “I’ve always believed that the best antidote to piracy is with a legal provider. The success of Netflix in the US is evidence of that. An affordable and accessible service will succeed in the face of piracy.”
Brisbane animators score series with Sesame Street
Igusto the Animal Prankster
A Brisbane animation company has tapped major children’s television broadcaster Sesame Street to produce an original short series.
Liquid Animation will deliver series Ziggy the Rapping Zebrasaurus for the US children’s program, aimed to teach pre-schoolers about shapes.
Liquid Animation managing director Steve Viner said: “As a studio that has cut its teeth on producing work for other people, we’re extremely excited to be developing our own story ideas.”
Quickflix lock in US production studios for streaming content
Online movie rental company Quickflix today announced they’ve secured leading US production companies for their new digital streaming subscription service.
The service will run to all Sony PS3 consoles and Sony Bravia internet connected devices.
Quickflix have secured deals with Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros International Brand Services, Lakeshore Entertainment, Content Media Corporation and Pinnacle Films.
Digital Ignition clinic attendees announced
Eight screen productions have been selected to take part in a multi-platform and transmedia clinic in November, organised by Screen Australia.
The Digital Ignition Multi-platform clinic is a week long workshop designed to “support the development of production ready multi-platform strategies.”
The clinic will be run by Gary Hayes, co-founder of StoryLabs who also wrote Screen Australia’s How to write a Transmedia Production Bible.
British media convergence bigwig to speak at SPAA
Stephen Carter, the man who re-engineered the UK’s regulatory landscape for media, is to offer a presentation on convergence at next month’s SPAA conference.
The session at the Screen Producers Association of Australia event is highly timely because Australia’s media regulations are undergoing a similar review to that carried out by Carter around seven years ago.
Carter created the UK super-regulator Ofcom after the merger of several individual media regulators. He later became a government minister and is now boss of telco giant Alacatel-Lucent. Read more »
Drama investment plunges, Screen Australia reveals
Screen Australia has released figures demonstrating the dramatic fall in film investment in Australia during the last financial year.
Overall, drama production in Australia accounted for $495m, the figures showed. Local feature production accounted for 18% of that. This was a drop of 67% on last year to $88m. Foreign activity accounted for 17% or $85m of the $495m. It was a fall by 53% on last year, due to only two foreign films shooting in Australia last year; Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Don’t be Afraid of the Dark.
The TV drama sector was the only bright spot, with expenditure rising by $12%. The sector took $322m, or 65% of the $495m, according to Screen Australia’s The Drama Report. Read more »
Alan Partridge comes to Comedy Channel
Alan Partridge’s Mid Morning Matters comes to Foxtel’s Comedy Channel in 2012.
The show is the first Partridge series for actor Steve Coogan in eight years, originally written as branded content for beer company, Fosters’ website, Fosters Funny.co.uk.
Nine Fights back with a big bang
Channel Nine fought back in Week 43 (16 – 22 October) in the ratings race with a win courtesy of the World Cup semi final featuring New Zealand and Australia (2,261,000).
The network also had the Big Bang Theory Ep2 (3rd – 2,094,000) and Nine News Sunday (4th – 2,051,000) in the top 5 shows, according to ratings from OzTam.
Housos’ Paul Fenech: Australia suffers from Nazi political correctness
Comedic writer and director Paul Fenech has warned that the Australian public is being marginalised by the influences of the media.
“People in the media are so polished that the real people are being marginalised.” Fenech told Encore. “You don’t see real people on TV, (even) reality contestants are hand-picked.”
His new show Housos, a slapstick comedy about residents living in a housing commission began airing on SBS this week.
“The show is more about bogans than housing commissions. It follows in the comedic tradition of Paul Hogan. I never thought it would be as topical as it has been.”
Aussie programming ‘stimulates $1.23b in production’
Free TV Australia, the industry body that represents the commercial free-to-air broadcasters has released figures that suggest Australian TV productions last year were at an all-time high.
The industry body states that $1.23 billion was invested in local content over 2010-11.
The figures also report 25,650 hours of content was broadcast across all networks in 2010 while over 6,400 hours were broadcast on the multi channels, where no local content obligation is enforced.