Netflix, Redbox, Blockbuster, and Amazon

My last post inspired me to switching gears to be bit crazy.

That last post was about the Kindle Fire as a perfectly viable physical and distribution platform.

But I also like the potential disruptive models, and weird (but still possible) business scenarios that get me what I want as a consumer.

I've written before about Redbox buying Vudu and Blockbuster, Netflix buying Redbox, Amazon buying Netflix, and there being an explosion of content for Amazon (though not as much as people think; Amazon really does OK, and there's a high overlap in Hulu/Redbox/Prime Instant Videos), and an Amazon Netflix rental DVD distribution (which they might or might not keep), and "Amazon Redbox" stations everywhere.

Part of this has already happened, as Netflix bought those blue rental kiosks at Walmarts everywhere. Then (in case you missed it) Coinstar (the company who owns Redbox), bought NCR for $100MM. NCR operates things like ATM machines, point of sales and retail systems, airline check-in systems, and Blockbuster Express branded kiosks. 

Coinstar's purchase of NCR (to be finalized quarter 3 of this year, if it's not considered anti-regulatory) includes DVD kiosks, "certain retailer contracts", and DVD inventory -- Giving Netflix a bunch of additional distribution points and product. 

That's after the Verizon and Redbox announced a physical and streaming agreement, that's going to make things real challenging for Netflix (and maybe Amazon streaming).

That Verizon / Redbox streaming competition makes things harder for Netflix, but maybe it makes them more applicable for an Amazon partnership (who obviously has the bigger market cap).

One of my big frustrations with streaming media is having to go to multiple sources to get content, and/or a lack of compelling new content (Netflix), or content expiring sooner than I can watch it (Hulu). I actually think an explosion of streaming options could be a good thing, as licensors can charge less (say, 30% of what they do for "just Netflix", license out to multiple streaming sources (4 to n), and make a lot more money, and be on whatever streaming solution to which I want to subscribe as a consumer. 

Going back to Amazon, as a consumer, I'd be fine if that scenario worked out somewhere that way (consolidated acquisition or more of the same content across multiple streaming services. Add scenarios where Amazon has an Xbox 360 media app. And buys Gamefly. That would give me my movie / book / music / gaming fixes in the same purchase / rent / stream / physical or digital model that I want, all in the same consumer-oriented ecosystem, whether I get it from my PC, phone, tablet, or game console.

Like I said, crazy. And I'm intentionally ignoring a lot of stuff. But not myopically. 

(Quick aside about relative market caps and aggressive partnership: Netflix is about 6x the market cap of Coinstar, but I'd argue Coinstar is being more intelligently aggressive in their partnerships and acquisitions. Netflix does stuff like the failed Quickster fiasco, and buying the DVD.com domain.)

The Blogs are Back in Town ...

Guess who just got back today?

Them useful blogs that had been away

How they've changed, got a lot to say

But man, I still think them posts are crazy

They were asking if you had freedom

How you was, if you were readin'

Told them you were readin' all 'round

Driving digirati crazy

The blogs are back in town

The blogs are back in town

I said

The blogs are back in town

The blogs are back in town

The blogs are back in town

The blogs are back in town

The blogs are back in town

The blogs are back in town

(With sincere, sincere apologies to Thin Lizzy.)

And apologies to you, because my multitude of blogs have been on a too-long hiatus, and now they're back in force.

Between changes with blogger.com and my Web hosting company changing how they were handling CName records -- my blogs got broken sometime last year. Add to that me being wicked busy at the toy job, and content itself has been light -- and a lot of what was there over the last year has been lost because of changes to the two not-so integrated services above. Sucky.

Anyway, due to me recently re-recognizing the importance of staying in touch with y'all through my postings, I've rebranded and reposted my blogs. To avoid further CName problems (and to take advantage of Google's various integrated media services), I've moved all of my blogs to be hosted by Blogger:

• Adam Creighton, Voice & Film Actor (Ramblings)
  http://ramblings4realz.blogspot.com/
• Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming
  http://gaming4realz.blogspot.com/
• I'm Playing
  http://playing4realz.blogspot.com/
• I'm Hearing
  http://hearing4realz.blogspot.com/
• I'm Seeing
  http://seeing4realz.blogspot.com/
• I'm Reading
  http://reading4realz.blogspot.com/
• I'm Playing With
  http://notdolls4realz.blogspot.com/

Apologies for the pseudo l33t speak of the titles, but since the blogspot goldrush has long-since passed, I needed to pick consistently unique named titles for each of my blogs.

Now, any time I make a new post to any of my blogs, notices will automatically post to Twitter (the World) and Facebook (Friends only). Posts from my game industry and acting blogs will also post automatically to my LinkedIn profile (Professional Network). Check out the post, "My so-called (connected gamer) life" over at my Gaming blog for the details for how I'm piping data back and forth.

Nothing should have changed for the RSS feeds, since I re-pipe all of those through my existing FeedBurner account, and kept the outward-facing URLs the same.

That's it for now -- more Freedom of Speechish fodder soon.

SDCC: Iron Man anime debut

I was able to attend the SDCC premier of the Iron Man anime series debut, and it was gorgeous, and exceeded my expectations - and I'm a comics and anime fan.

The ongoing series (one of 4) will broadcast on G4 television in 2011, be set in Japan, produced by the inimitable Studio Madhouse, and dialog will be in Japanese with American subtitles.

The 24-minute episode revolves around Tony Stark's humanitarian initiative, his desire to retire iron Man, and his introduction of a new set of armor, and ... other stuff (I hate spoilers). My only wish is that they'd showed opening and ending credits. We anime fans eat that up.

Iron Man is the first series, Wolverine is the second, X-Men the third, and Blade the fourth.

While nothing was said about the timing of the other three series, head of programming John Rieber did say there will be a rolling release of the various series.

They did show world-premier concept images from the Wolverine anime, including Logan, Yuriko, and Omega Red (Jeph: "Doesn't he look bad-ass?").

SCOOP: After the panel, while I was thanking Jeph Loeb for, well, basically being him, he said the four series all occur in one world, and the characters will show up in each others series. Teh shizzle - You read it here first.

And as a meta commentary, observing them the last few days, so many companies could learn so much from Marvel and execs like Loeb:

* How to create new expressions of an IP, authentic to the property, and authentic to the expression itself.

* How to tease and launch a new product - especially at Comic-Con.

* How to run a comic-con media reveal panel - gracefully handle technical challenges in stride, manage questions, and keep things moving.

* How to be confident in your art, and be cool, professional, pleasant, and personable, without revealing things they shouldn't, and without being douchey.

* More, but if I say it I'll look like I'm sucking up to the family, and/or I'll get myself trouble.

-30-

SDCC: Welcome to the Digital Age

Marvel is wicked impressive in it's transmedia penetration (I hate the former new buzzword, so I added the second to make it sound dirty).

Anyway, I didn't want to miss this panel, covering Marvel.com, the "Your Universe" initiative, Motion Comics, and more.

There was a convention preview of a Thor & Loki motion digital comic,which will coincide with the release date of the film, which looks amazing.

Next up was the browser-based Marvel Super Hero Squad game, which I checked out earlier today, and looks really fun for kids. Those Amazing Society developers are talented folks.

Then on to digital comics, which are doing well on Apple platforms, but no info about whether the experience will get any less painful on Netbooks.

There was also an announcement of Ultimate Thor releasing day and date in print and digital form. The announcement fell a little flat with the audience, which is too bad, because it's a pretty big deal, along the lines of Steve Soderberg / Mark Cuban day and date experiments.

During the QA, the panel revealed the more mature Marvel online video game from Gazillion is still under way.

There was an interesting diversion about digital comics creating a "discovery forum" for comics that's lacking since comics have moved away from non-specialty shop newsstands.

Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, and Video Game VO

Here's a brief video of Don Cheadle and Samuel L. Jackson doing voice work for SEGA's upcoming Iron Man 2 game:



Like I said, it's brief, but it provides one small slice of a view into video game voice work.

Nunsploitation

There's an interesting featurette on "what's the deal with nuns in Japanese pop culture?" over on Kotaku.com.

It's got a couple of nuggets of interesting historical stuff, so it's a decent lightweight read. It is, however, a ridiculously shallow view (but hey -- it's Kotaku), and candy-coats at least one medium's portrayal of Judeo Christianity.

If you (for example) look at how Christianity is portrayed in Japanese animation (popularly, "anime"), like MD Geist and Evangelion (the latter of which mixes in Gnosticism and Kabbalism as the same thing), Macross, etc.) -- the religion is not popular. As a matter of fact, Christianity is often held up as the device from the West that literally brings about the end of the world.

That doesn't quite mesh with the Kotaku feature, which puts kind of a positive spin on Christianity's reception in Japan.

But none of that matters.

What does matter is the feature's reminder to me of the term, "Nunsploitation" -- Exploitation films about nuns, popularized in Europe in the 1970s (while the West was doing backsploitation). And then Japan was off and running with nunsploitation through the 80s and 90s.

Fascinating cultural stuff.

(Discuss.)

AJC in ATX

I had the best of intentions (and still do) to do a post about the result of this decision, and its follow-on impacts.


But the short version is I'm working for Junction Point, making the Epic Mickey game for Nintendo's Wii console.


All of this means that I'm (a) working with Warren Spector, (b) working for Disney (and therefore Marvel), (c) making video games and other creative expressions. Friends and longtime readers* know what a head-exploding good thing all of this is for me.


And yes, I am now back in Austin, Texas, bouncing around from generous couch to generous couch (and sometimes even getting a bed), and bouncing back and forth between Austin and NC as I try to sell my house there, and take care of my family who's so awesomely sacrificing so I can pursue this crazy gig.


With all of this, I'm slow boating the "getting back into the Austin acting scene" (other than voice work), because new job plus crunch isn't conducive to me being out for a few days at a time for film shoots.


But I'm excited to get back into it here, because the acting landscape has changed surprisingly over the last two years, I'm jonesing to be back on a set, I'm burning the candle at both ends, and all this plus the whole not having a pot to piss in has made me ****ing raw and ready to do some daring stuff.


More soon(ish).


* Not the same thing.

On creativity and composition

My last post was pretty hefty, and there's no easy way to step down from it in a measured way that wouldn't be more orchestrated than it was genuine.

So, instead, I'm goning to dive right in with my next post and talk about boobies.

OK, not per se, but at least I've set an appropriately low bar on the thematic weight side of things, and have much more ceiling.

Moving on.

I so dig snorgtees.com. I'm not associate with them in any way, but I've been a fan of the package that is their company and offering and product for a long time.

They make hilarious T-shirts, riffing or springboarding off of retro and pop culture love, and they do it in creative (if not brilliant) ways.

An all-black shirt that says, "There are 3 ninjas on this shirt [try to find them]".

"Your epidermis is showing."

(Two pictures of bags of ice and a picture of a baby.)

But like I said, it's not just the logos and the products -- it's the package that is the company.

Take this shirt, "I drink your milkshake":


(If you're unfamiliar with the deriving song, I envy your blessed naïvité.)

The shirt is funny by itself; it plays on pop culture, and has an odd, stilted old-school graphic juxtaposition against what's in essence a jug-happy metaphor.

But what finally prompted me to write about these folks are there ads (which I usually see on Kotaku.com).

I snagged a pict of this ad, because you could take almost any of them, and match what works alone in the graphic above, magnified with A) an appropriately attractive (but not stereotypical) model, who's B) animated and bought in during the shoot, but in a C) realistic, living, non-posed way.

Tie to acting? Creativity and "being" (not faking).

(Let along the obvious example of smart branding and leveraging pop culture.)

Kudos!

Voice acting video game interviews

Since I'm a voice actor and a gamer, I look for interviews with actors on their techniques and processes for video game worlds.

A couple have popped up for one of my more anticipated games -- Mass Effect from Electronic Arts BioWare.

First up is an MTV Multiplayer interview with Seth Green, the wunderkind creative and voice actor behind things like Robot Chicken (but to me, he'll always be Oz from Buffy, with his leaving signifying a brief downturn in the watchability of the show).

Then there's this video interview with veteran actors Keith David, Lance Henriksen, and Marina Sirtis.


David has some good stuff to say (including the fact that "acting is acting -- it's either good acting or it's bad acting"), as does Henriksen (with nuggets highlighting some of the differences between voice acting and on-camera acting).

Comic book artists take on literary characters

I really dig media intersections.

And I'm a comic book guy. And I'm also fairly well-read on the literary side.

So when I stumbled across this site, which is a collection of comic book artists' takes on literary figures (both from the literature, and the folks creating the literature), I easily blew through a blissful hour.

Adam Hughes's rendition of Raymond Chandler? Bruce Timm's H.P. Lovecraft? Dave Cockrum's War of the Worlds? Neil Gaiman's Sunday (from G.K.Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday)? Tom Grummett's Winnie the Pooh (a favorite of mine for some reason)? Mike Mignola's Dracula?

Why are you still here?

• Hey Oscar Wilde! It’s clobberin’ time!!!