Hasta La Motion!

The third edition of OTTv Mumbai 2019, held on 6 June at the Courtyard by Marriott, saw extensive discussion on the booming OTT industry in India, that’s experiencing a lot of action and promises humongous prospect.

Presented by Dveo Media, the OTTv MUMBAI 2019 provided a platform for the leaders in the OTT, digital video business in India to discuss on the impact of distribution partnerships and original shows on subscriber base and revenue.

The summit started with Dveo Media CEO Deepak Ramsurrun’s welcome address followed by insightful sessions with media and industry veterans. The first session was a one to one discussion with HOOQ India managing director Zulfiqar Khan who talked about content strategy, new approach in content, an OTT platforms going global.

When Ramsurrun asked when is an OTT platform ready to go global and if being locally strong is a necessity, Khan commented, “I think the day, as an organisation you can segment out the piece of the cake, you’re ready to go global…Not necessarily it has to be locally strong. You can cater to different geographical locations. There are great learnings across industries and markets. You just need to identify your strength.”

He also emphasised on like-minded partnership with big names like Hotstar, as distribution is the key and it’s “ridiculous” to expect consumers to download 39 apps! He also mentioned that despite small screens are currently in vogue, big screens are where hardcore content is consumed. “Content is made for big screen. Small screen is transient and keeps you distracted and busy for a while. Small screens are just filling the gaps when you’re travelling,” he said.

Khan added that monetisation is a huge factor and at times they have to work within limited space. HOOQ India is eyeing premium content but unfortunately, like West, a single language doesn’t prevail in India, and according to him, there’s possibly no better market than India.

Moderated by Ramsurrun,the second session focused distribution challenges for OTT platforms and partnering with Telcos as for better and wider reach. The panel had speakers like Sony Pictures Networks India Original Content and Partnerships, Digital Business SVP and head Amogh Dusad; Shemaroo chief operating officer-digital Zubin Dubash; ZEE5 India Business Development and Commercial head Manpreet Bumrah; media veteran and strategy guru Naveen Chandra and GoQuest Media director Vivek Lath.

The panel discussed on how the Telcos have been the key in distribution. Different models are created in order to cater to the different needs for varied audience.

Lath asserted to this observation, “The Telcos have given a very interesting model. Some look for ADs, some look for pay wall. So there are various models coming up for various needs.

Bumrah added on the similar line, “Gone are those days when people used to consume content only in the evening. Now, they’re consuming content while travelling, or during a snacky break, tea break. Now the entire thing has given us a possibility to actually create lot many business engagements. Telcos and mobile phones are great enablers into this thing. People are actually are valuing content. And if there’s quality content, they’re paying for it.”

This session was followed by a presentation by Limelight Networks chief financial officer Sajid Malhotra about the network service, used for delivery of digital media content and software.

Soumini Sridhara Paul with Rahul Bakshi

The fourth session was again a one to one discussion between Reliance Entertainment Big Synergy CEO Rahul Bakshi and Artist Aloud / Hungama Kids VP Soumini Sridhara Paul. The conversation was mostly based on the production company that’s expanding its offering into the fiction segment for both TV and Digital Media with popular web-series like Yay kay hua Bro, Kaushiki, Bose-Dead or Alive, Savdhaan India Naya Adhyay and few under development shows with Amazon.

Bakshi said, “Budget in OTT is much more than TV. Must watch is the new trend and not not must have. Specific apps are going to be a trend very soon.”

The next panel discussion was on ‘How device and TV app partnerships impact on growing the customer base?’, and the speakers were Republic TV Digital Revenue head Varun Mohan, The Viral Fever OTT project head Vinay Pillai, Immersive Media Consultant and Partner RealVision Clyde DeSouza and Elara Capital Research vice president Karan Taurani, moderated by Simplicity Communications CEO Ajitabh Dutta.

The OTT industry in India is experiencing constant activity and initiatives, whether it is in terms of production, partnerships or providing new experiences to viewers. The players are also adapting to new challenges.

On this aspect, Taurani noted, “Content is king here. One big reason for the growth of small screen is that the cost of smart TV is much more than that of smartphones. The broadband penetration in this country is 10 per cent, whereas smartphone and internet penetration is 40 per cent.  Thanks to Jio. If Jio’s new broadband plans become successful, then the scenario might change.”

From left to right : Abhijat Dutta, Varun Mohan, Vinay Pillai, Clyde DeOuza and Karan Taurani.

On the other hand, DeSouza commented on how technology is aiding OTT platforms and partnering with it. Said he, “When we talk about partnerships, the largest OTT platforms can even Instagram and Facebook. We need engaging and interactive channels to turn smartphone into a second screen. We need partnerships that’s going to enable big screen experience.”

Mohan also informed that OEMs got higher traction than Telcos and there are three things that require Content, Accessibility of the Content and User Experience.

The third panel discussion looked at ‘How can content distribution on free video platforms like YouTube drive the growth on paid video platforms?’. The speakers included Limelight Networks senior engineer Charley Thomas, Muvi Business Development head Ankit Pandey and Nirvana Digital MD Pinakin Thakkar, with Integral Ad Science India lead Dr. Kushal Sanghvi.

Post lunch, the summit saw how we series and original content is contributing to the market positioning of OTT players. Perspectives were shared by Hoichoi co-founder Vishnu Mohta; ALT Balalji SVP and marketing head Divya Dixit; Eros International chief marketing officer Manav Sethi; MX Player marketing and business partnerships head Abhishek Joshi; and ZEE5 India marketing head for Music and Live Reilly Rebello, in discussion with Paul.

Original content has been the game changer in the OTT business. A plethora of new, fresh content has upped the game for many players after Netflix kind of set the trend with its mind blowing Sacred Games, Love Per Square Foot and others.  

From left to right : Soumini Sridhara paul, Vishnu Mohta, Divya Dixit, Manav Sethi, Abhishek Joshi and Reilly Rebello.

Dixit mentioned, “There’s absolutely different approach from broadcast to digital. There’s no rehash of content, but freshly created ones… It’s not necessary that every show will be a sureshot success. The intent of the platform should be to have the power of the brand that even not so great shows will also run.”

Almost all big OTT platforms have given importance to regional content to cater to myriad audience with myriad languages. Mohta mentioned, “For Hoichoi, our bet was the depth of catalogue of creations and stories. There are 200 million Bengalis and 180 million Bangladeshis and the kind of content we create and distribute is different from each other.”

Rebello too quoted, “Almost all content on ZEE5 is dubbed in south languages as a mandate.”

Sethi made an interesting comment on Indian markets. He quipped, “From an objective point of view, 80 per cent of consumption on YouTube is non-english. OTT as a platform gives you the opportunity to look at India as 1000 markets.”

Before the last two sessions, PWC Partner/Leader of Entertainment, Media and Sports Advisory Raman Kalra also made a presentation on OTT business trends.

The second last session was a debate on whether an OTT platform can engage audience without joining the web series bandwagon. The panel consisted of Docubay VP and Strategy/Business head Girish D, Lokmat Media Sr. EVP and Digital Business head Hemant Jain, along with Kalra and Paul, with Dutta as the moderator.

In the context Jain said, “Episodes on TV are nearly 20 minutes with almost 10 minutes commercials. So, OTT was created where people get to watch undisruptive content… Even Facebook and Instagram is a great marketing platform if used smartly.”

From left to right : Deepak Ramsurrun, Kashmera Shah, Akshada Bhalerao, Kushal Sanghvi and Karan Taurani

The concluding session talked about how successful are web series with bold content in catching eyeballs. The speakers put forward different opinions and perception about boldness. The panel had ICOM Global vice chairman Kushal Sanghvi; Pocket Aces Content Syndication and Licensing head Akshada Bhalerao, actor and director Kashmera Shah; and Bollywood filmmaker (Bhootnath) Vivek Sharma along with Sanghvi and Taurani as speakers, in conversation with Ramsurrun.

Sanghvi said, “Eyeballs will naturally gravitate towards new, edgy, controversial content that involves skin show. GOT worked because such boldness of content was never seen before.”

Raman Kalra

Taurani opined, “The bold is a part but not sustainable for a long time. The mindset in India and the US are different. Today’s youth prefer bold content but that’s not what content is made of wholly.”

Bhalerao on the other hand pointed out that, “Our audience is very smart. Skin show will grab eyeballs but will not be sustainable. For me, bold is content is about having a voice, a bold concept that’s executed smartly when the script demands it. Ours is the cleanest content in that aspect.”

Before wrapping up, the OTTv summit also recognised two new players in the digital space – Watcho and Shemaroo Me.

The flourishing OTT space with varied content, strategies, marketing options, wide distribution is sure to soar high in the coming days, and this summit just pointed out how.

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Bengaluru GAFX 2019 is right around the corner and if you are one of the enthusiasts reeling with excitement about what’s in store, we’ve got good news for you. The first list of speakers looks as promising as ever as GAFX is all set to play host to a diverse set of stalwarts from around the world.

First list of Speakers

World Festival Premier of Chhota Bheem Kung Fu Dhamaka by Green Gold founder and CEO Rajiv Chilaka and Golden Robot head of business development R K Chand

Having long ruled the hearts of kids, Chotta Bheem recently returned in Chotta Bheem Kung Fu Dhamaka on celluloid which made waves not only in India but across the world and extended the landscape of Indian animation with its fascinating storytelling and advanced 3-D stereoscopic technology. To witness how they created the beloved imagery would be both interesting and enlightening.

Wargaming and other major studios – Are you Game for Fame – Tips and Tricks on How to Avoid Shame & Blame in the World of Games by Hitbox Entertainment COO Cindy Armstrong

Absorb the nuggets of insights into the gaming world ranging from survivability to studio nuances. Gamers and developers both will benefit enormously by the nourishing address by Hitbox Entertainment’s chief operating officer Cindy Armstrom who has over 30 years of experience at Activision, Mutant Arm and (currently at) Hitbox Entertainment.

Excerpts from Ralph Breaks the Internet by Walt Disney Animation Studios, California – 13 Disney Princesses Character Fx/Simulation Supervisor Avneet Kaur

Ralph breaks the Internet franchise has repeatedly amused and regaled cinemagoers with stunning animated visuals. Avneet Kaur from Walt Disney Animation Studio will be gracing the stage to share with us some insightful excerpts from the movie.

World Leading Animation & Games Content showcase by Technicolor Animation & Games LA vice president of creative Owen Hurley

Owen Hurley will be showcasing their dazzling breadth of projects in the animation and gaming content. The visually alluring and creative body of work along with the process behind the scenes in creating their content will definitely stimulate the geeky nerves of the enthusiasts.

The Making of Sir Ridley Scott’s Seven Worlds by MPC Advertising, London FX TD/CG Lead Christian Bohm Houdini and FX TD/3D Lead Tushar Kewlani

Having sprinkled the magic in a variety of notable VFX-rich Hollywood movies and advertisements, MPC Advertising London’s Houdini FX TD / CG Lead Christian Bohm Houdini and FX TD/3D Lead Tushar Kewlani will be presenting the breakdown of Sir Ridley Scott’s masterpiece The Seven Worlds.

Making of Kannada blockbuster KGF-Chapter 1 by Unifi Media MD Udayaravi Hegde and VFX Supervisor Praveen Damodaran

KGF chapter 1 struck a chord with many of the viewers with power-packed and thrilling action sequences. Fans will be treated to a presentation by Unifi Media MD Udayaravi Hegde and VFX supervisor Praveen Damodaran who will be delving into the process of how they deployed the software for breathing wonder into the action.

The event is set to mark the convergence of top subject matter experts, studios, production houses, game developers and the best content and projects from all over the world to provide exposure and know-how to the professionals, artists and students. We are sure the event is going to be buzzing with enlightening exchanges and inputs from experts around the world. We shall keep you updated on further development.

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The age of investing countless hours in adjusting claymation models are almost gone as modern computing VFX technology has overlapped it. Today VFX plays the key role in amplifying the visuals in content. But when the audience watches the final project it is just that seamless amalgamation of storytelling with the aid of VFX.

Over the years VFX studios from India and abroad have explored different avenues to create content which is out of the box. In creating such content the studios have gone through many hurdles, however, the reflection of the hurdles on the final projects is zilch, that’s the magic of today’s VFX. We have spoken with few studios supervisors to understand more about the challenges faced by VFX studios during the making of some particular project.

MPC: As the Dumbo movie director Tim Burton approached MPC to create concept art and designs for Dumbo’s world, MPC’s VFX artists then started working on the creation of CG characters and animation cycles. Its Character Lab team created several characters, including the film’s protagonist, Dumbo, which took more than a year to develop—although some initial tests at Disney started earlier. From the overall appearance, to how he would physically move, it was both a challenging and creative process. “The main challenge was how to get the balance right between what a real and an idealised elephant looked like. MPC wanted to reference the original cartoon as much as possible while working with more realistic attributes,” said the VFX team. VFX shot for the movie was around 1800, over 90 minutes and MPC was responsible for close to 1200 shots.

In addition to that MPC VFX Supervisor Patrick Ledda said “Firstly, I should say that most of the circus was practically built on set. It was so large that it needed to be split into three different sound stages. This meant that you could never have the entire circus shot through the camera. We, therefore, created a replica of the circus to allow easy digital set extensions. Some parts of the circus such as trees, background tents, and more were never built practically so we had to create CG versions for those. The main creative challenge was the creation of skies. Tim Burton wanted a storybook feel so he wasn’t too keen on over realistic looking skies. He wanted something that was real but expressionistic. We spent a significant amount of time developing this look to match the practical sets which also had an expressionistic feel. Every scene had a different sky, meticulously designed to match the mood of the film.”

When we asked the supervisor about any of these scenes were challenging, he said “Another great sequence was the scene where he is given a bath. This was very complicated technically and creatively. Creating CG foam it’s quite complicated and given that Dumbo had to interact with actors, it created a whole list of challenges. Also, Tim wanted to direct the foam to represent Dumbo’s mood. We ended up using a combination of CG foam and practical foam elements which we shot at MPC.”

Image Engine: Under the Image Engine shadow Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is one of the movies which kind of a dream project for Image Engine studio. In delivering large environments, animated creatures, and photoreal CG humans, Image Engine visual effects supervisor Martyn Culpitt and visual effects producer Cara Davies gathered a team of artists fresh off other challenging projects such as Logan, Game of Thrones and Lost in Space and began tackling the New York scenes.

Beginning in August 2017, a crew size of around 130 at Image Engine worked on the opening section of the film for 13 months. “I think it is one of the more complex scenes we’ve tackled here at Image Engine. “It’s an amazing sequence and we’re all really proud,” says Culpitt. In addition to that “We also got to invest a lot of time up-front in development, especially in animation and effects. I feel that really helped the team figure out a lot of the challenges early on in developing ways to provide automatisation of effects. It feels like such a continuous sequence,”  adds Davies. A Fantastic Beasts film would not be complete, of course, without some incredible creatures. One of Image Engine’s major challenges for the carriage scene, aside from the flying winged Thestrals, was the quirky six-limbed spiked chupacabra, although initially the studio was only called on to feature it in a few shots. “They loved him so much there’s now 13 shots,” says Culpitt, who points out the character turned into a comic relief in the sequence. “He evolved, too. He used to be orange with stripes, and now he’s black with white and red stripes. He’s quite a fun little guy,” Culpitt added.

After: The VFX of the movie Kedarnath was done by VFX studio After VFX, where the movie VFX has many intricacies since it is around water which is considered a challenge. The visual representation and recreation of the authenticity and reality of Indian ‘pahari’ culture has amused the viewers including the alluring beauty of the valleys, the mountains, the waterfall and the temple. On the other hand, the enthralling VFX of the natural disaster has that real and emotional essence which might remind viewers of the actual time and mishap.

After VFX head Vishwas Savanoor said, “Creation of the flood sequence was the most complicated due to the grandeur of Indian water bodies as far as Kedarnath is considered, also background plates have to be matched to the live locations.”   Not only that the VFX representation of the giant wave submerging the Kedarnath temple was also challenging as it reveals how the wave bounces on temple top and subsumes everything. The flow of the water, the temple bounce and the massive splash that submerges everything are visually quite challenging for the studio. The movie has more than 126 shots of water and over 900 shots overall excluding water. The movie contains general VFX shots, the added environment in the background with the inclusion of work from the departments of matte painting, simulation, animation, lighting, colour grading, paint clean up and composition.

Red Chillies.vfx: The movie Zero is one of the VFX-heavy movies for which the VFX was supervised by Red Chillies VFX studio. The work was experimental and fresh where the VFX supervising studio Redchillies.vfx did a remarkable work on shrinking the superstar into a dwarf for the entire duration of the film Zero. There were 2800 VFX shots in the film, however, only 2400 shots made it to the final reel. Red Chillies VFX creative officer and VFX supervisor Harry Hingorani expressed that they knew using a body double and replace with Shah Rukh Khan’s face later will not work because of actor’s popularity and familiarity in the audience.

Hingorani said “ We wanted to ensure that Khan’s mannerism, body language is retained. So it was unanimously decided that Khan would play this role himself, no body double. How do we do this?  The biggest challenge was to make sure that the VFX is seamless so that the audiences cannot make out something is different and this way, accepts Khan as a dwarf. This was achieved by the use of blocks (which is also mentioned in the behind the scene by the actor himself). So if you’ve watched Aanand L Rai’s previous movies, they are filled with human emotions and drama. So keeping this theme in mind, we used the block style to make sure the eye-line amongst the actors matched. We constructed one and a half feet perimeter of boxes within which Khan would stand and the other actors would stand on them. Every set we created, we had to keep in mind this process and when it was needed, we would remove the boxes.”

Redchillies.vfx chief operating officer and VFX producer Keitan Yadav said “ Besides creative challenges, we also had the production pipeline to look after. We realized that we had two and a half lakh tasks spread across 2400 shots, and each shot had five plates. This meant multiple elements to be managed in each task. So streamlining the production process was critical. We achieved this by outsourcing our 2D to 3D shots conversions. The studios would work on rotoscope and send it back to Red Chillies vfx. Once we received it, our artists would start the dwarf creation process. It was a huge challenge to coordinate between 58 studios. The process was like this: One studio would deliver certain shots, then Redchillies.vfx would start the process. Then the other VFX aspects like cleanups, environment generation/simulation would be created. A constant and never-ending process with shots coming in and going out.”

Frame Store: Framestore was the lead VFX company for Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns and the studio has delivered 470 sparkling shots across 32,000 frames. One of the film’s magical moments was when real-life heroes – Mary Poppins, lamplighter Jack and the Banks children – are transported to a colourful animated world. The scene features a lively music hall sequence (replete, of course, with dancing penguins) and culminates in a thrilling carriage chase, with the merging of traditional animation and modern VFX a tag-team operation between Framestore’s Montreal team and the animators at Duncan Studios.

VFX Supervisor Christian Kaestner says “Integrating the 2D and 3D universes definitely threw up some challenges. Balancing perspectives and allowing the right amount of modernity to filter into that exquisite hand-drawn world required a great deal of time and thought. The pacing is so dynamic and the choreography so precise that we really had our work cut out when it came to capturing the light, texture, shade and geometry of the scene. Helping bring together the superb direction and choreography, the fantastic performances and Duncan Studios’ artwork for the seated, animated audience was a lot of fun but also a lot of work – for example, we actually recreated the music hall’s stage and lighting rig to get things just right.”

NY Vfxwaala: Under NY Vfxwaala umbrella Simmba is one of the movies which has set a milestone at  the box-office and its VFX was one of the reasons as it played a crucial part in its success. The team have worked on more than 1800 VFX  shots which comes up to a duration one hour and 43 Mins.  The VFX team overcame challenges that they faced during the post-production as they said to us in a candid conversation.

“The challenges we faced were about the huge amount of set extensions and 3D work which must look similar and match to the original set, we had to do the Lidar 3D scanning of the entire set and create a Virtual Set in Maya in the studio so that all the set extensions look real and seamless,”  they said. Apart from that for the Dhobi ghat sequence, the sequence was originally shot at a different location altogether. However “ the challenge was to make it look real, and as the desired output was supposed to exceed the expectations we used a combination of 2D and 3D VFX technology to give it a perfect look as per the director. The technology involves multilayer comping with water and cloth simulation done is software’s like NukeX, Maya and Realflow”  said the VFX team.

No matter how difficult the challenges are for the studios, with the creative thought processes, unique techniques and incorporation of modern technologies, they have made these movies  visually much more appealing. While VFX is already breaking barriers of visual portrayal in myriad content that we consume, it is an ever evolving art and will only continue to make our viewing experience scintillating.

The post #FeatureFriday: Content, VFX and challenges! appeared first on AnimationXpress.

The Children’s Media Conference (CMC) is set to launch Playground, its interactive digital art exhibition for children, families and CMC delegates, on 25 June at the Site Gallery, Sheffield. Running this year for two weeks from the 25 to 30 June and the 2 to 7 July 2019, the exhibition is now in its fourth year and will focus on the theme of Game/Changers, showcasing reinterpretations and remakes of seminal toys, games and experiences developed over the last 40 years.

The Children’s Media Conference co-founder and director Kathy Loizou said: “We are delighted that Playground continues to grow, this year doubling its stay at the Site Gallery, and garnering a 2019 Sheffield Digital Award in recognition of the innovation at the heart of the project. We look forward to bringing the experience to even more local families and children, and enjoying the interpretations of this year’s theme, Game/Changers.”

This year, Playground’s 2018 iteration was presented the Best Digital Arts & Culture Project award at the inaugural Sheffield Digital Awards 2019. Curated by CMC, artists and designers in this year’s line-up include Pippin Barr, Bennett Foddy, La Sophiste and Sensible Object, a new commission by Site Gallery’s Society of Explorers and the MakEY project organised and run by The University of Sheffield, School of Education.

Site Gallery artistic director and the show’s curator Sharna Jackson said, “I’m thrilled that Playground has come home to Site Gallery and we’ve been able to double the exhibition’s run from one week to two. I cannot wait to see children and their families at the Gallery enjoying Game/Changers.”

The exhibition is suitable for five to 12 year olds but everyone is welcome to drop-in free of charge during opening hours. For children with sensory requirements, Playground will host a quiet hour on the mornings of 29 June and 6 July.

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Blockchain technology has wowed and mystified tech-enthusiasts around the world. Touted to have the capacity to disrupt the conventional ways in which the processes are carried out, Blockchain has been emerging as an enigmatic game-changer yet people scarcely have awareness of the full extent of its applications. In order to get a grasp on the intricacies of blockchain technology, we spoke to Lumiere CEO Patrice Poujol who is a PhD holder on matters of Blockchain.

Blockchain

Dr Poujol is also an EnTech research expert and a film practitioner. He has 8-year experience in the financial sector and movie finance and 12-year experience as a creative consultant and producer in the movie industry. In 2018, he obtained the first PhD worldwide on the integration of blockchain technology in Creative Media (CityU Hong Kong) through academic exchange with UCLA and participation in the MEFTI programme organised by MIT.

Lumiere CEO Patrice Poujol

I just wanted to know just a little bit about blockchain where more focus will be on India What are your plans? How do you foresee the market?

Well, we don’t have an exclusive focus on India but funnily enough and this is not something we forced or anything, we have been dealing with some foreign developers, especially in India. Our team is scattered around the world: Hong Kong, Mainland China, USA (San Francisco, Los Angeles), Ecuador, Europe … So It’s completely already decentralised in a way.

Going back to India, and quite frankly it was surprising but India came to us rather than we going to India. We had an article with Anshul Padyal from Humans of blockchain He writes articles about people behind the blockchain project. He was extremely excited about blockchain technologies. He is a computer scientist. I saw a lot of interest coming from India and I saw a presentation on how Blockchain can be used for media.

I won’t tell you much about the technology but you should come to the panel tomorrow.
It’s like the developments of the Internet in 1995. it’s a nascent technology which can have applications in a lot of different fields. I personally know people who started with finance but it has a lot of applications like in Healthcare now, identity, what I mean identity is not “BIG BROTHER” it means when refugee crisis like it happened in Syria. It’s a way to track certain data, not necessarily to say HEY YOU SHOULD BE HERE or YOU’RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG, NO. It’s also a way to keep people safe, if you lose your passport, for example, UNICEF as well there was a hearing for example, where they were giving people value so they can actually buy food, could have a decent living experience. I haven’t been on the ground with these projects so maybe you would want to research about them.

I know Ethereum foundation…

Yes, it has many applications, supply chain management is another sector. I have my doubts about some aspects of it but at some level, it can work with a lot of sectors.

It works particularly well with digital assets. Whether it is about certificate or music or anything that has to do with the creative industry because creative industries are digitised now. Suppose you’ve got an E-book coming out, then you can just get the printout or download it. It’s very simple, you just sign in and that’s it. It’s E now. E-Book, E-Library, CD’s are passé now. Who uses CD’s now? (laughs)

Everything is so accessible now. It’s about accessibility you know anytime, anywhere. I can instantly find my favourite music at the click of a button.

It’s not to say that the physical copies have been wiped out. People still use VHS, vinyl for music but the big chunk of the market is non-physical now. it is digital. When you look at blockchain technology its absolutely possible to have any digital asset recorded in a blockchain, which makes it very easy to track right from the moment it is produced. Companies such as Cinemarket and Vuulr allow the trading (buying/selling) of these rights on their platforms. You will also see people on the panel whose business models can make piracy a thing of the past. make it redundant, that’s the beauty of it. you don’t even need it. The legacy industry has tried to watermark all the content trying to find ways to trace back all the perpetrators trying to find people who are downloading the content immediately and they could never do it successfully but blockchain is thinking about it differently. The current models can shift up to a point where people can watch content for a smaller fee like with White Rabbit, for free, or even in some cases be paid to watch content like with TATATU. Some of these models are consolidating, like White Rabbit and Cinemarket who have integrated their activities to form Motion. The entire business model is shifting, once you have these new models in place, piracy will be irrelevant – why would you pirate content when someone is actually paying you to watch it?

True, it’s only a matter of time as to when it becomes available.

When you pirate, there is always the potentiality of a virus, spybots, etc. Once these models are fully adopted and go through, people in the future will laugh about it saying hey that’s what we used to do (piracy) which doesn’t make sense in the current context.

Then there is a distribution aspect which means traceability in the creative universe that has music and arts under its umbrella, it means that you have centres of power, its about power. Power is at the centre of it. which means money is centralised, it means if you’re a creator it will be very difficult sometime unless you are extremely famous to get paid or to be paid on time and you can ask around.

I have seen that first hand. What blockchain allows is instead of having a human intervention in the system of accountancy with a lot of intermediaries paying you royalties which can be a very lengthy process very costly paper waste which takes time takes forever two years with the royalties that you are going to have. Even for producers, if you want to make your next film, you have to wait for a long time. You have to wait a year and a half before you make your next film but with this system if it’s designed properly, you can collect your royalties direct into your own account (wallet) within days automatically and through micropayments because the problem with royalties and the world we live in today is that they can not send you in paper it is all in cheques so they accumulate on a collection account and when it reaches a certain level then you get paid but with micropayments somebody clicks and only for ten cents and you get paid on it, the transfer doesn’t cost much compared to cheque processing or even a wire transfer with a bank. While these micro-payments are not processed for free, their cost is bound to be fractional.

I don’t want to talk too much about crypto, I’d prefer if you stayed with Blockchain because the thing about cryptos is that it’s another topic altogether.

Obstacles?

I am saying this is what blockchain can do but there are obstacles of a different nature – If I describe these obstacles to you in details, I will have to go quite deep.

Scalability is an issue… Micropayments are not ready on a global scale but in a year or so, maybe – some companies are working on this. Ethereum, Cardano, There are companies that are trying to solve these issues in micropayments. There are companies that are trying to ensure the security of these payments: companies like Cardano, for example, are working on this. Internet is centralised through its servers.

Your phone my phone whatever device becomes as many nodes that form an alternative decentralised network. At the moment the internet doesn’t work that way. All these are nodes but they are connected to one single server, if the server goes down, it’s all gone.

We can create this network with a system that is completely different from the internet but it still works. even if your phone goes down, the network still exists. Even if all of our phones go down, it’s super resilient. It’s unofficial I heard this is not a new technology it was actually developed in the nineties more than 20 years old. More examples of decentralisation in the past. there is a man (or a group, a movement) who was really important in the development of this technology I am not going to say “Satoshi Nakamoto” no, although that name comes up a lot!

But if you look at visionaries like Nick Szabo who wrote about small contracts very early on in the 1990s, this is a very significant input into the technology that is used today. He is not the only one, there is a group of people, but he is one of the pioneers.

Again I don’t have official proof and it deserves a bit more research, but it is plausible that this technology was created as a resilient system in the case of a major environmental crisis or a global disaster, if the central server goes down, it’s all gone and the data will be lost forever you know but with the blockchain technology the data doesn’t get lost, whether it is good or bad, I cannot tell you… technology is always a double-edged sword… it depends on what humans make of it. But if you put something on it, it can stay forever on the records.

There are pros and cons to it..

This is the real debate but this is not the debate we’re going to have tomorrow but yes on Facebook and traditional sites, you have concerns about privacy and you can work around it but the prospect of something not being erased.. who will you give permission to? Who can access it?

You can delete it?

No, in theory, you cannot delete the data, it will remain in the block which has a history of the chain. That’s an obstacle I believe or it can be an amazing feature.
When someone tries to spread fake news, we will know him forever.
The issue of quantum computer attacks has also been raised. I mention it in my book that Quantum computers are not there yet, not for another 10-15 years at least. At the moment, even if you put the collective computer powers of India Russia China U.S.A all put together, you will not be able to change the chain. It’s not exactly true because of the risk of 51 per cent attack, notably in the case of proof of work (PoW) protocols. But it can be a very safe system so I was talking about resilience in terms of quantum computers. Quantum computers are going to be so powerful that some companies such as NEO or Cardano are already thinking about how to go about that, it might upset the entire model. Again I am not a technician at that level but there are people already working on those solutions because they know in 10 years or 15 years it might be a problem otherwise so we are anticipating that we don’t have to regret later. There used to be an environmental effect with respect to the blockchain as well regarding PoW. In order to validate transaction in the chain, you had to use a lot of computer power and energy. It is not great for the environment. The proof of stake (PoS) method may not use a lot of computational power which means it won’t harm the environment with people staking a certain amount of cryptos as a decentralised collective.

Education – The process can be quite difficult to grasp, so education is key here; institutions such as the Bitcoin Association in Hong Kong, Paxful, or InvestHK have been key to educate people on the use and limitations of blockchain technology. Post .com revolution, we already talk about technology and computer ‘illiteracy’ and we don’t want entire strata of the population left behind or having to deal with the hardship to level up on their own.

You think that crypto will survive in the future because in India it is not that much. In India people still, don’t believe that there is only a small percentage. I have friends who have invested there.

The U.S government is very careful about it now. There has been a lot of scams. It doesn’t mean everything was a scam in the legitimate companies are working today to provide crypto-related solutions. There are people working in talent agencies. There are people working on ensuring safeguards against scamming also. There are many companies using blockchain technology successfully. There are folks from Ireland who have a ticketing system (Festy.ie). They have already developed a product. Aside from our project, Lumiere and our collaboration with Finfabrik, there are folks such as Motion, Gelos, Breaker, who are doing projects that will support the emerging filmmakers.

It’s a very good project I think.

With India, we talk about global connectivity especially Network internet that is global. Network internet that will be global but legislation and rules in each country depending on the culture you are from are different. If you go to Saudi Arabia you are going to have different laws from the laws in Mumbai if you go to Beijing or Paris or New York. I mean the laws differ from state to state within the USA. That is a difficulty because what is allowed in one jurisdiction is not allowed in the other. And when you have a uniform system like this you can not take everything into account. I think to be able to resolve this, people have to agree collectively.

It will take time. Its implication in the M & E space.

Movies can be a difficult thing because the obstacles are intermediaries and vested interests. People have a great interest in keeping things the way they are. What we wanna do is instead of going head to head with people which is what Netflix did, we are trying to integrate and go for a smooth transition. The journey will take quite a few steps

If done right, it will be very fair and balanced. Or maybe it will be incorporated or restored I don’t know. That’s another obstacle. There is a chance to bring more creativity to get the audience more connected to the content. People are tired of watching the same movies again and again… (sorry to sound racist)… but directed by white guys in their 30’s. Proposing the same thing over and over again. Maybe people want to watch a movie directed by an emerging talented artist such as RIMA DAS. I think it is going to prove a boon for India because you are amazing at making films. They wanna see something else. I think people are ready for this now. At the exception of certain franchises, I think blockbusters shot themselves in the foot.

At Lumiere and Finfabrik, we are planning to change this and offer diversity through transparency in a traditionally obscure industry… in response to this, in 2017, as I was in Los Angeles, a big Hollywood Producer told me that I am going to need a bullet-proof jacket. And I told him that I don’t really care, if I can’t contribute to carrying these changes, many others will…

In India, Have you worked with moviemakers?

Not yet but we are looking to do it.
I can not tell you things because it’s very early on but I will be happy to update you when I do Hopefully by May. India has a very big role to play. You’ve got quite a lot of moviemaking going on there. Dangal was one of my favourite films. Our idea is not telling people what to do but working with people rather as a collaboration. I think India is fascinating because it’s like having several countries within a country. It’s very a very complex set of markets to grasp and penetrate.

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