OK, I've been silent about this long enough.
For many the release of the movie The Hobbit: And Unexpected Journey was a much anticipated and awaited film from Peter Jackson.
I'm at the age where I can't be bothered to go see a movie on opening night and even though The Hobbit made a ton of money, complaints poured in about the 3D experience.
I kept hearing that the film, and more specifically the CGI, looked, well, too much like CGI at 48 frames per second in 3D.
That coupled with all the goblins being rendered in CGI rather than in costume and makeup like the orcs in the first three Lord of the Rings movies made me uneasy about wanting to see the movie at all even in 2D. Insert nerd alert joke here!
New technology always has some kinks to work out, and perhaps the fault is not in direction, but what most people are used to.
Let's face it though, CGI has been overused or not used well in countless movies. Ahem, I Robot!
You do get some top of the line productions that make a breathtaking go at it, though I wonder if Peter Jackson could have anticipated the combination of CGI and 48 FPS would be judged by many as to be unrealistic.
In the end I don't think anyone goes to a live action movie to get CGI imagery that you can find in a top tiered video game release, you anticipate that the realism is going to be top notch.
Who knows when one will be able to tell the difference between a live action movie or a video game in the future though.
Here is a link to an article with other links about 48 FPS
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Justice & Sponsorships
Oscar Pistorius was granted bail.
I doubt a soul connected to TV or the Internet has not heard about the case that Pistorius is facing so I wont rehash anything you don't know.
What I want to briefly talk about are athletes and sponsorship.
The first most obvious thing to point out is that a premeditated murder charge is big. For a sponsor to stick with any athlete, even if said athlete is found innocent, would be nothing short of a miracle when the charges involve murder.
Nike has distanced itself from Pistorius, releasing a rather reassuring and non committal statement stipulating that Pistorius is owed due process.
So does that mean if Pistorius is found not guilty that Nike would gladly have him back?
I somehow doubt it.
From Kobe Bryant's sexual assault charges, Tiger Woods philandering, and Serena Williams telling a Line Judge to shove it you no where, you see an ever growing hierarchy of public relations headaches that agents and lawyers are called upon to deal with.
Social media is even more of a headache when you think of the time when all you could do was slam a phone down on someone, or write an angry letter, calm down and not mail it.
We have gone from that to angry emails that can be CC'd and printed off to a 140 character bought of Twitter diarrhea that is not so easily retracted and can reach a huge audience.
PR lesson, if it's on the Internet, it might very well be there forever!
The Pistorius case I think will show that even if you are found innocent on a charge of murder, your sponsors are not going to want to have you hocking their wares.
I doubt a soul connected to TV or the Internet has not heard about the case that Pistorius is facing so I wont rehash anything you don't know.
What I want to briefly talk about are athletes and sponsorship.
The first most obvious thing to point out is that a premeditated murder charge is big. For a sponsor to stick with any athlete, even if said athlete is found innocent, would be nothing short of a miracle when the charges involve murder.
Nike has distanced itself from Pistorius, releasing a rather reassuring and non committal statement stipulating that Pistorius is owed due process.
So does that mean if Pistorius is found not guilty that Nike would gladly have him back?
I somehow doubt it.
From Kobe Bryant's sexual assault charges, Tiger Woods philandering, and Serena Williams telling a Line Judge to shove it you no where, you see an ever growing hierarchy of public relations headaches that agents and lawyers are called upon to deal with.
Social media is even more of a headache when you think of the time when all you could do was slam a phone down on someone, or write an angry letter, calm down and not mail it.
We have gone from that to angry emails that can be CC'd and printed off to a 140 character bought of Twitter diarrhea that is not so easily retracted and can reach a huge audience.
PR lesson, if it's on the Internet, it might very well be there forever!
The Pistorius case I think will show that even if you are found innocent on a charge of murder, your sponsors are not going to want to have you hocking their wares.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
The Shale Wars ...
If fracking isn't on your list of common words then I guarantee in the next decade or so it will be.
The end of all the easy oil has already happened, we are using all the dirty oil up such as the Alberta Tarsands, and now we are being told not to worry because there is a huge abundance of shale gas underneath our feet around the world.
First thing to note is that said shale deposits are very far underground and the amount of water that will be required to process it is immense as in trillions of liters.
The wells for processing shale are also notorious for releasing a cocktail of carcinogens into the atmosphere with some companies investing heavily in minimizing the fallout while other smaller companies don't have the financial means to be as clean.
Fracking has been going on for some time and has inadvertently created a glut of natural gas which has tanked prices in North America.
Add to that a lack of communication and transparency with the general public about the dangers versus the benefits of fracking, and we have a communications conundrum that the industry will have to work hard to fix.
The BP oil spill isn't that far from peoples minds and with the climate getting ever so warmer and a growing energy hungry population, it behooves the oil industry to be a little more diligent in how it sells fracking to the masses.
I personally am weary of relying on another finite resource to power a large portion of our way of life.
There are predicted to be another three billion people joining the world population by 2050 so I have to reasonably ask if all this shale is going to be able to meet that demand.
The short answer might very well be a yes, but the long answer is most certainly no.
The end of all the easy oil has already happened, we are using all the dirty oil up such as the Alberta Tarsands, and now we are being told not to worry because there is a huge abundance of shale gas underneath our feet around the world.
First thing to note is that said shale deposits are very far underground and the amount of water that will be required to process it is immense as in trillions of liters.
The wells for processing shale are also notorious for releasing a cocktail of carcinogens into the atmosphere with some companies investing heavily in minimizing the fallout while other smaller companies don't have the financial means to be as clean.
Fracking has been going on for some time and has inadvertently created a glut of natural gas which has tanked prices in North America.
Add to that a lack of communication and transparency with the general public about the dangers versus the benefits of fracking, and we have a communications conundrum that the industry will have to work hard to fix.
The BP oil spill isn't that far from peoples minds and with the climate getting ever so warmer and a growing energy hungry population, it behooves the oil industry to be a little more diligent in how it sells fracking to the masses.
I personally am weary of relying on another finite resource to power a large portion of our way of life.
There are predicted to be another three billion people joining the world population by 2050 so I have to reasonably ask if all this shale is going to be able to meet that demand.
The short answer might very well be a yes, but the long answer is most certainly no.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Some Light Reading ...
I remember going over to my grandparents house as a child and when I had to use the bathroom there was always a pile of Readers Digest sitting on the countertop by the toilet.
I suspect that was a common place to find a copy of Readers Digest in any given house aside from tattered copies that have been fingered through too many times in a doctor or dentists office.
Today I saw on the news that Readers Digest is over $400 million in debt and filing for bankruptcy.
The first thing that jumped to my mind is that Readers Digest did not embrace the digital age or they did too late to stop the bleeding.
As I understand it, The New York Times is making more money off of digital purchases versus paper purchases.
This is a sign that every magazine and newspaper publisher needs to heed, as well as book publishers in the near future as well.
I remember hearing from a representative of the Winnipeg Free Press suggest that they haven't gone to a full online edition of the paper because many of their clients aren't convinced their advertising dollars are going to pay off online.
I suppose a large paper like The New York Times with huge name recognition can pull off the full online edition while smaller papers might have a tougher time of it.
So I understand the conundrum that many smaller papers are facing if your clients who give you precious advertising dollars are not keen on investing fully in online while customers are spending less money on paper copies, ironically, because the news is all online in some form.
I just thought that maybe tiered online versions of a paper would be a good idea; you pick the sections you want and pay a rate commensurate with that and the advertising would be more targeted and perhaps you give the customer some choice in the ads they see, and charge a larger price for a customized edition of the paper with no advertising at all.
Well, only time will tell if hard copies of newspapers are available at all in another decade or so, but in the meantime, if you don't mind, I'm going to the bathroom to read an article on my iPad.
I suspect that was a common place to find a copy of Readers Digest in any given house aside from tattered copies that have been fingered through too many times in a doctor or dentists office.
Today I saw on the news that Readers Digest is over $400 million in debt and filing for bankruptcy.
The first thing that jumped to my mind is that Readers Digest did not embrace the digital age or they did too late to stop the bleeding.
As I understand it, The New York Times is making more money off of digital purchases versus paper purchases.
This is a sign that every magazine and newspaper publisher needs to heed, as well as book publishers in the near future as well.
I remember hearing from a representative of the Winnipeg Free Press suggest that they haven't gone to a full online edition of the paper because many of their clients aren't convinced their advertising dollars are going to pay off online.
I suppose a large paper like The New York Times with huge name recognition can pull off the full online edition while smaller papers might have a tougher time of it.
So I understand the conundrum that many smaller papers are facing if your clients who give you precious advertising dollars are not keen on investing fully in online while customers are spending less money on paper copies, ironically, because the news is all online in some form.
I just thought that maybe tiered online versions of a paper would be a good idea; you pick the sections you want and pay a rate commensurate with that and the advertising would be more targeted and perhaps you give the customer some choice in the ads they see, and charge a larger price for a customized edition of the paper with no advertising at all.
Well, only time will tell if hard copies of newspapers are available at all in another decade or so, but in the meantime, if you don't mind, I'm going to the bathroom to read an article on my iPad.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Vine Multimedia - Stand Up & Stand Out
I applied for the position of PR Assistant at Vine Multimedia and when I was doing some research on Vine Multimedia's website, what sets Vine Multimedia apart from other agencies in the city of Winnipeg is Vine Mutimedia's focus on Social Business.
What also stood out for me is how Vine Multimedia tries to minimize its carbon footprint through the use of green energy and encouraging working from home.
Most importantly though, I think I can contribute to Vine Mutimedia's team and culture via my passion for feeding into the creative process, and my connections to Transition Winnipeg, a local non-profit with a mandate to ween Winnipeg off of our finite fossil fuel way of life.
I've been doing pro bono work for Transition Winnipeg which includes writing a creative brief, crafting business cards, and most recently a promotional video.
I see a natural bridge between what Vine Multimedia cares about and what Transition Winnipeg wants to accomplish, and nurturing connections to clients is what I can do in the position of PR Assistant.
I want to end this post by plugging Vine Multimedia for an amazing corporate culture that I think more businesses should adopt, and Vine Multimedia would be an incredible work environment for me given that I strongly suspect that the people at Vine Multimedia are as quirky as I am.
For more info on the work Transition Winnipeg is doing go to their website:
Transition Winnipeg
What also stood out for me is how Vine Multimedia tries to minimize its carbon footprint through the use of green energy and encouraging working from home.
Most importantly though, I think I can contribute to Vine Mutimedia's team and culture via my passion for feeding into the creative process, and my connections to Transition Winnipeg, a local non-profit with a mandate to ween Winnipeg off of our finite fossil fuel way of life.
I've been doing pro bono work for Transition Winnipeg which includes writing a creative brief, crafting business cards, and most recently a promotional video.
I see a natural bridge between what Vine Multimedia cares about and what Transition Winnipeg wants to accomplish, and nurturing connections to clients is what I can do in the position of PR Assistant.
I want to end this post by plugging Vine Multimedia for an amazing corporate culture that I think more businesses should adopt, and Vine Multimedia would be an incredible work environment for me given that I strongly suspect that the people at Vine Multimedia are as quirky as I am.
For more info on the work Transition Winnipeg is doing go to their website:
Transition Winnipeg
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