NFL - Large Sensor End Zone Cam... Your Thoughts?

When I think about separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to what I really care about watching, I realize I am willing to pay a certain amount directly to that entity to have a commercial free experience. Basically the HBO business model, but in this case sports. We will see if more of that approach shows up. The problem is how much? Certainly not PPV pricing like a boxing match but maybe $15 a month during the season. It is tough to know the economics as the coverage amount can be altered to fit budgets etc... It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out but it is clear, channel surfing is pretty out of style.
 
I actually think there are some advantages to channel surfing, or at least to not choosing what exactly you're going to watch. I made that suggestion to Netflix a couple years ago. It can be exhausting to look through their offerings and sometimes we never settled on one. They could also have a "Netflix TV" channel going where you just jump into a stream of content in the middle of whatever is playing. Or even a series of channels like drama, sci-fi. And those trivia intros to a movie were fun. There's something to be said for a passive experience when you're brain fried.

But commercials... it's probably foolish for a cameraman to wish them away, but as a viewer i certainly do.
 
ahalpert said:
Yeah, different pricing strategies are already being tested. Certainly there are annual discounts. Hbo max i think was offering a discount rate if you signed up for 6 months. Makes sense to me.

In point of fact, if we subscribe to a service, we're usually with it for at least 3 months if only because we can't binge that fast. Amazon we'll have forever. Same with youtube prime or whatever it's called (ad-free youtube). Cbs i've had for almost a year now.

But i want to watch what everyone has to offer. I don't need to see it right away and there's no reason for me to subscribe to them all simultaneously.

I think the smart move is they start billing for 3 months at a time. Good compromise.
Click to expand...

And because most of them have "their" content always available, there's really no rush. It's "always" going to be there.
 
ahalpert said:
Netflix is currently profitable, ergo their current model is sustainable I guess? And if they develop a troves of proprietary hits (like the next Friends and The Office) then there may be less pressure to create new content in the future. Right now they're feverishly trying to make up for the recent and upcoming losses of everyone else's stuff...
Click to expand...

We're in uncharted waters because this is a new industry. There are related precedents, however.

For example : when we came to the US in 1979, ABC was the number one TV network. It had "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley" and "Mork and Mindy" and "Angie" and "Taxi" and "Fantasy Island" and "Love Boat" and "Charlie's Angels" and MNF and so on. Meanwhile, NBC had "Hello, Larry" and "Supertrain". Things were so bad at NBC in the fall of 1979, Fred Silverman (who was brought there from ABC) scheduled the already aired sketches from "Saturday Night Live" in prime time (IIIRC, it was on Wednesdays). NBC even took on "Taxi", which ABC canceled.

The production team of "Taxi's" writers Charles Brothers then created a sitcom called "Cheers". One night in its first season, a "Cheers" episode was the lowest rated program in the whole of prime time TV.

Then, in 1984, when the sitcoms were considered dead or nearly dead, Silverman's replacement Brandon Tartikoff decided to pick up a sitcom with a has-been comedian named Bill Cosby. The show immediately became the most popular program on TV and made people pay attention to the great shows like the "Hill Street Blues" and "St. Elsewhere" - plus, "Cheers", "Night Court" and "Family Ties" - that no one was watching thereto.

And, unlike ABC,, NBC rode that wave for another twenty years because Tartikoff and Warren Littlefield then also picked up "Wings", "Frasier", "Seinfeld", "Friends", "ER" and so on. Now, they just have "Superstore". Which is just as well, since nobody watches TV anymore anyway.

And some day, the same will probably happen to all the streamers.
 
Streamers get bulldozed by youtube and twitch? Or by some new format not yet invented?

The thing is - look at the enduring popularity of seinfeld, the office, friends. Sure, they won't be popular forever. But at the laundromat I used to go to, they were always playing MeTV with MASH, twilight zone, alfredo Hitchcock etc. I've been watching 80s/90s star trek shows for the last 11 months and still haven't finished because all 3 shows are like 26 episodes/season and 7 seasons apiece.

Already you have things like orange is the new black, stranger things (not that I've seen either) which seem to have enough of a cult following that people might rewatch them. Certainly, Disney is betting on its 80 years or whatever of catalog (and will probably win that bet).

I maintain that Netflix will never have more pressure to produce original content than now.
 
As far as the catalog go, one may have to consult (the late and loathed in many a Hollywood quarter) Kirk Kerkorian.

Or ... here's a story I'd told before already. Summer 2015. My then companion and I are at the checkout line at a supermarket. I show her some glossy with the "Princess Bride" stars on the cover, especially Robin Wright. My companion never heard of the film, as she didn't grow up in the US. So, while we were waiting our turn, I briefly explained the film's popularity. The cashier and the bag girl were sort of eavesdropping on our conversation, so I asked them if they heard of the movie. "When was the movie made?", the cashier asked. "1987", I answered. "Oh, I am only 17. I don't watch films made in the 20th century".

So much for the catalogs.
 
DLD said:
As far as the catalog go, one may have to consult (the late and loathed in many a Hollywood quarter) Kirk Kerkorian.

Or ... here's a story I'd told before already. Summer 2015. My then companion and I are at the checkout line at a supermarket. I show her some glossy with the "Princess Bride" stars on the cover, especially Robin Wright. My companion never heard of the film, as she didn't grow up in the US. So, while we were waiting our turn, I briefly explained the film's popularity. The cashier and the bag girl were sort of eavesdropping on our conversation, so I asked them if they heard of the movie. "When was the movie made?", the cashier asked. "1987", I answered. "Oh, I am only 17. I don't watch films made in the 20th century".

So much for the catalogs.
Click to expand...

Sample group is too small... I’d love to see the numbers of “back catalogue” content being watched. It’s a gold-mine of stuff you may have missed for whatever reason originally and stuff that was well before your time. I’d say it’s almost a 50/50 split of current and “catalogue” content that I was watching on Amazon. And as we’ve seen time and time again, all it takes is for the right person on social media to mention something and BOOM, everyone on the planet is interested and fixated on it. If Kendal Jenner tweeted out that she watched Princess Bride over the weekend and loved it, they’d have to add servers just for that movie, because everyone and their brother, sister and great aunt would be streaming it.

And to your point on your previous post about ABC/NBC, I’ve heard of or watched every one of those shows, except those two on NBC in fall ‘79. Although Superstore I’ve just kind of heard of in passing.
 
Plus, if people didn't watch movies from before they're born, that would still provide new stuff a relatively long shelf life (median age in US is 38, so call it 45 years average shelf life for any given viewer)
 
"Supertrain" was a "Love Boat" knock-off. It's like it's "Love Boat ... but on a train". It nearly bankrupted NBC, forcing Fred Silverman's resignation. NBC was still owned by RCA then and RCA was having financial problems of its own because the Japanese TV manufacturers were killing the American (GE, RCA, Zenith, Sylvania, Curtis-Mathes, etc.). Eventually, GE bought it, leading to a famous Letterman brush with the security at the GE HQ.

And I actually watched a few episides of "Hello, Larry" because of Kim Richards (who was really cute back then).

s-l1000.jpg

As to the sample audience, it's still audience. You and I and Abe aren't the 'standard profiles", people who have seen the B&W classics. When I was working at a video store in 1986-87, most - and I mean, over 90% of the customers - refused to watch anything in B&W.

I have natural curiosity, so I was ecstatic to watch old Bogart and the Marx Brothers flicks from the 1930's and 40's. Most fans have never seen the "Big Sleep" or the "Maltese Falcon" and weren't even remotely interested in seeing them. We had a good selection back then. People were nice and they often asked for my recommendations. After a while, I realized that Siskel & Ebert didn't have the final say. Almost everyone preferred cheesy slasher films over the real Hollywood classics.

As to the huge money made of syndication off the top hits of the yesteryear, those are fairly small audiences. What makes money is their desire to watch the same content with different commercials inserted over and over again.
 
DLD said:
"Supertrain" was a "Love Boat" knock-off. It's like it's "Love Boat ... but on a train". It nearly bankrupted NBC, forcing Fred Silverman's resignation. NBC was still owned by RCA then and RCA was having financial problems of its own because the Japanese TV manufacturers were killing the American (GE, RCA, Zenith, Sylvania, Curtis-Mathes, etc.). Eventually, GE bought it, leading to a famous Letterman brush with the security at the GE HQ.

And I actually watched a few episides of "Hello, Larry" because of Kim Richards (who was really cute back then).

As to the sample audience, it's still audience. You and I and Abe aren't the 'standard profiles", people who have seen the B&W classics. When I was working at a video store in 1986-87, most - and I mean, over 90% of the customers - refused to watch anything in B&W.

I have natural curiosity, so I was ecstatic to watch old Bogart and the Marx Brothers flicks from the 1930's and 40's. Most fans have never seen the "Big Sleep" or the "Maltese Falcon" and weren't even remotely interested in seeing them. We had a good selection back then. People were nice and they often asked for my recommendations. After a while, I realized that Siskel & Ebert didn't have the final say. Almost everyone preferred cheesy slasher films over the real Hollywood classics.

As to the huge money made of syndication off the top hits of the yesteryear, those are fairly small audiences. What makes money is their desire to watch the same content with different commercials inserted over and over again.
Click to expand...

I worked as a producer of bonus features, documentaries and special content for hundreds of classic titles for five years at a now defunct production company in the early 2000s. It's sad and I agree with what DLD and Abe say and have observed. Classic Cinema should be far, far more popular that it is with current and younger audiences. It's simply a matter of diet. The average American is raised only on a diet of visual junk food, there is no sense of history, curiosity, literature, reverence for the past taught in our education system. American culture glorifies and promotes shallowness, stupidity and denigrates intelligence and critical thinking. Without veering too political, the majority of problems facing our country today are a result of the dumbing down of America.

Cinema and well made TV are art, good art is timeless, but if people have been raised to hold art at arms length with no reverence, they will be ignorant of it. When I was at the company, I was fortunate to spend a solid year working with the Harold Lloyd Estate on the Harold Lloyd box set for New Line Cinema. I brought home the full catalogue of Lloyd's work of comedic genius, he was an amazingly talented filmmaker and for a time was as popular as Keaton and Chaplin, yet his work is largely forgotten and ignored. Through no prodding of my own, I found my kids and then their friends sitting around on weekends watching B&W silent films by Lloyd. They loved them and instantly saw the genius of his work. Simply beause they saw me working on a documentary and extra features, were intrigued and then I taught them a bit about Lloyd, what Hollywood was like in his era, how they would hop in a car, drive around downtown LA and shoot a feature film with a tiny cast and crew in a day or two, just like how indie filmmakers were doing it at the time, my kids were fascinated, then they became obsessed and watched his entire catalog. You can't force feed B&W, silent, art films to 21st century audiences any more than you can force them to go to museums to look at art. But if they at least get a bit of exposure, a percentage who are naturally curious will want to know more and will realize the genius of the best cinema.

It's the same with music, literature, fine art, storytelling. If you raise children and neglected to expose your kids to these things so they at least see it, hear it, have a chance to become intrigued by it, then you have done your kids a disservice. Of course, if your parents never exposed you to art, that makes it harder. My parents were not afficiandos of art, I grew up on a ranch. But the first time I heard Steely Dan was my mom playing a record of them when I was about ten. The first time I ever read Mark Twain was when I was five and my Dad gave me The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a first edition his dad gave him. So even though there was not a lot of art appreciation in my house, there was some exposure that gave me a start, thank God I'm a very curious person and if I find something intriguing, I take a deep dive. I wish we could teach curiosity but I think it's innate.
 
The natural curiosity comment is interesting... Since everyone is basically spoon fed everything today. “If there’s something interesting I need to know about, celebrity x, y or z will tweet about it”.
 
Run&Gun said:
The natural curiosity comment is interesting... Since everyone is basically spoon fed everything today. “If there’s something interesting I need to know about, celebrity x, y or z will tweet about it”.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure this is entirely true. Sure, there is an immediate connection with celebrities stronger than anything before. But surely this is only different in degree from celebrity-worship of yore.

Meanwhile, look at all the rabbit holes people go down with their own "research" (QAnon, flat earth). Definitely a product of curiosity. The issue is the lack of critical thinking applied.

But look at Bitcoin. Or some of the self-taught finance geeks at r/WallStreetBets. These people used the internet to see through the Matrix.

And I'll admit that I have a tougher time watching star trek TOS than I did as a kid because the effects are cringeworthy even though the themes/writing are still by and large good. (But yeah the old physical comedy or absurdist stuff like buster Keaton or Marx brothers never gets old. There's actually a scene in the latest season of star trek where the crew watches buster Keaton together.)

One thing that has changed is the pace of things. I think movies/shows are often frenetically paced today and even though it doesn't always work, once you get used to it it's harder to appreciate the pace of even stuff from the '60s.

And like DLD said, even in the late 80s, most movie renters refused to check out B/W movies.

I come down firmly in the middle. Some things have gotten better and some things have gotten worse about society/culture. And I sure as hell love having an encyclopedia in my pocket that can also show me anything i want to watch. Madness.

Side note - the availability of stuff today is crazy. That was one of the great first things about Netflix - all the arthouse and foreign films you could get (although it probably put niche rental houses out of business first for that reason...) I've spent all year indulging in a linear review of 3 star trek series because all I saw as a kid were taped reruns, a handful of out-of-order episodes. It cost like $60+ to buy a season on VHS. Then DVDs only had a few episodes per disc, so to rent a 26-episode season would have really added up. Today, I'm in heaven haha.
 
Natural curiosity.

Back in 1992, PBS released a BBC made WWII documentary series called "Battlefield". Tim Pigott-Smith was narrating and he did a phenomenal job (while mispronouncing all the German names). First episode - the Battle of France. Two whole hours. I was hooked. In 2015, I was with the same female friend as in the checkout line, watching the Military Channel. They showed a different episode of this series. I could pick nits with it all two hours. Hundreds of books and discussion forums will do that to you.

But, to give credit where it's due.

 
For shits and giggles, here's the scene on the recent star trek where buster keaton makes new fans in the 32nd century. I wonder if this episode rekindled any interest in him today.

 
Just watched today's Barcelona - Bilbao highlights on YouTube ... the large sensor out-of-focus post-goal celebration is taking over Europe by storm ...
 
It’s funny, we were actually talking about this yesterday on a shoot(and even funnier it was for FOX Sports, though not NFL) and one of the producers said, we’ve been giving them that kind of stuff for years from field ENG feature stuff and NOW they can’t get enough of it.
 
Already predicting the backlash coming for using some shallow camera for the coin toss that went hunting for focus at the end of the toss as the players ran back to their benches, ha.
 
I just don't understand why they are keeping the aperture so wide open? Just close it down a bit and the look will fit right in. The super shallow aesthetic is distracting. I think they are trying to go for the video game look in the end.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top