Quibi in Trouble

I typically hate all things that cater to the perceived notion that "everyone has ADD now and it's only going to get worse" and I'll admit I never watched Quibi, but in the most recent issue of American Cinematographer it had a really interesting article about the DP's that were shooting shows for Quibi and some of the technology was quite interesting.

Basically the shows could be viewed in vertical mode or landscape mode (so the DP's had to frame for both at the same time.....which sounds awful), however one show I was reading about made flipping from vertical or landscape part of the interactivity of the show (the viewer would get a hint to turn their phone at a certain time).

Getting back to the ADD "videos have to be short!" idea..... I think the author of the content sets the tone and expectation for time/pacing in the first 10-30 seconds and the viewer will adjust. Sometimes a 90 second video online seems sooooo long cause it's just fast cuts and wall to wall information and other times a 10 minute video leaves you wishing there was more.
 
chris f said:
I typically hate all things that cater to the perceived notion that "everyone has ADD now and it's only going to get worse" and I'll admit I never watched Quibi, but in the most recent issue of American Cinematographer it had a really interesting article about the DP's that were shooting shows for Quibi and some of the technology was quite interesting.

Basically the shows could be viewed in vertical mode or landscape mode (so the DP's had to frame for both at the same time.....which sounds awful), however one show I was reading about made flipping from vertical or landscape part of the interactivity of the show (the viewer would get a hint to turn their phone at a certain time).

Getting back to the ADD "videos have to be short!" idea..... I think the author of the content sets the tone and expectation for time/pacing in the first 10-30 seconds and the viewer will adjust. Sometimes a 90 second video online seems sooooo long cause it's just fast cuts and wall to wall information and other times a 10 minute video leaves you wishing there was more.
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Oh my god, don't get me started on vertical video. I can't believe we have to adapt the whole medium because people can't be bothered to rotate their phones.

You can have a nice composition in portrait form, of course. But humans see in landscape orientation - eyes side-by-side. Social scenarios play out widescreen - people stand next to each other, not on top of each other.

I shot a webisode before lockdown that was 9:16, protect for 16:9. It's like 4:3 protect for 16:9 on steroids. Both framings suck. I mean, the compositions are balanced because that's easy. But the 16:9 is full of negative space and I would have framed it tighter. The 9:16 is claustrophobically close because of the nature of the aspect ratio and the fact that the viewing medium will be so small.

I'm like "sure, I'm willing to work harder to make my work look worse!"

I've seen nice things done vertically. And that intentional rotation with hints sounds cool. But usually if I see a vertical trailer ad for something on Amazon as I'm scrolling through the news I think "back up! You're too close"

I agree that every story/film has an ideal length (although I dont think you can do much in under 10 minutes). I've been rewatching star trek tng lately and typically the episodes are too long (like this could have been 30 minutes and now there's 10 minutes of vamping and filler) or more often too short (this plot is getting complicated and it should thicken and develop now but I know everything will be completely resolved in 10 minutes)
 
Greg Smith said:
Too bad they didn't follow through. That would probably have made them some money.
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I misspelled it. It was QatBie (sounds funnier now, doesn't it?)

And from a purely financial arbitrage point of view, there could be a commission gap between what YouTube pays and what a paid service could pay to the content creators. Which is why Joe Rogan is off YouTube in a few weeks and off to Spotify.
 
ahalpert said:
Oh my god, don't get me started on vertical video. I can't believe we have to adapt the whole medium because people can't be bothered to rotate their phones.

You can have a nice composition in portrait form, of course. But humans see in landscape orientation - eyes side-by-side. Social scenarios play out widescreen - people stand next to each other, not on top of each other.

I shot a webisode before lockdown that was 9:16, protect for 16:9. It's like 4:3 protect for 16:9 on steroids. Both framings suck. I mean, the compositions are balanced because that's easy. But the 16:9 is full of negative space and I would have framed it tighter. The 9:16 is claustrophobically close because of the nature of the aspect ratio and the fact that the viewing medium will be so small.

I'm like "sure, I'm willing to work harder to make my work look worse!"

I've seen nice things done vertically. And that intentional rotation with hints sounds cool. But usually if I see a vertical trailer ad for something on Amazon as I'm scrolling through the news I think "back up! You're too close"

I agree that every story/film has an ideal length (although I dont think you can do much in under 10 minutes). I've been rewatching star trek tng lately and typically the episodes are too long (like this could have been 30 minutes and now there's 10 minutes of vamping and filler) or more often too short (this plot is getting complicated and it should thicken and develop now but I know everything will be completely resolved in 10 minutes)
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I hate vertical video. And framing for both simultaneously? I already lived through the 4:3/16:9 ordeal. But 4:3/16:9 is a minor difference compared to 9:16/16:9. I did the math before based on our horizontal and vertical AoV/FoV and our vision expressed as an aspect ratio is, if I remember correctly, just a little over 4:3, even though it seems even wider. But that’s still a far cry from 9:16. 1.33:1 vs. .56:1, meaning even 4:3 is over 2 1/3 times wider. And 16:9 is over 3 times as wide(just a stones throw from 3 1/4x).
 
ahalpert said:
I completely agree with you. But to answer your question, I think their business model was rooted in building an exclusive library of celebrity-rich content. (Eg if you want to watch the Chrissy Teigen courtroom show, you NEED Quibi.)
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Since Quarantine, with the celebrity backlash, I would pay more to NOT have to watch programming with any celebrities. ;-)
 
ahalpert said:
Oh my god, don't get me started on vertical video. I can't believe we have to adapt the whole medium because people can't be bothered to rotate their phones.

You can have a nice composition in portrait form, of course. But humans see in landscape orientation - eyes side-by-side. Social scenarios play out widescreen - people stand next to each other, not on top of each other.

I shot a webisode before lockdown that was 9:16, protect for 16:9. It's like 4:3 protect for 16:9 on steroids. Both framings suck. I mean, the compositions are balanced because that's easy. But the 16:9 is full of negative space and I would have framed it tighter. The 9:16 is claustrophobically close because of the nature of the aspect ratio and the fact that the viewing medium will be so small.

I'm like "sure, I'm willing to work harder to make my work look worse!"

I've seen nice things done vertically. And that intentional rotation with hints sounds cool. But usually if I see a vertical trailer ad for something on Amazon as I'm scrolling through the news I think "back up! You're too close"

I agree that every story/film has an ideal length (although I dont think you can do much in under 10 minutes). I've been rewatching star trek tng lately and typically the episodes are too long (like this could have been 30 minutes and now there's 10 minutes of vamping and filler) or more often too short (this plot is getting complicated and it should thicken and develop now but I know everything will be completely resolved in 10 minutes)
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Did you watch Homecoming on Amazon? They used the 9:16 ratio for big portions of the show. Once the mystery is revealed it becomes clear why they used such a narrow, constricted ratio in parts of the story. I thought it was a pretty creative use of the new aspect ratio. Great show too. I wasn't too keen on watching it, but once I finally got around to it I really got sucked in. Compelling mystery. Great acting and filmmaking. And I love the use of recycled film scores. It reminded me that most modern movie music is crap.
 
puredrifting said:
Since Quarantine, with the celebrity backlash, I would pay more to NOT have to watch programming with any celebrities. ;-)
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But, but don't you keep in touch with Kim K is saying about the virus? You've got to pay attention to what Angelina and Kanye have to say about anything. And my favorite celeb is Oprah and her ads for Weight Watchers. Oprah .... Weight Watchers ... oh no! I broke a rib laughing.
 
Paul F said:
But, but don't you keep in touch with Kim K is saying about the virus? You've got to pay attention to what Angelina and Kanye have to say about anything. And my favorite celeb is Oprah and her ads for Weight Watchers. Oprah .... Weight Watchers ... oh no! I broke a rib laughing.
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I've worked with a lot of "celebrities" as well as actors, directors, writers, producers who are "famous". Very few of them aren't bottom feeding sociopaths.
 
Batutta said:
Did you watch Homecoming on Amazon? They used the 9:16 ratio for big portions of the show. Once the mystery is revealed it becomes clear why they used such a narrow, constricted ratio in parts of the story. I thought it was a pretty creative use of the new aspect ratio. Great show too. I wasn't too keen on watching it, but once I finally got around to it I really got sucked in. Compelling mystery. Great acting and filmmaking. And I love the use of recycled film scores. It reminded me that most modern movie music is crap.
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No I haven't seen that. I get Amazon Prime for free but without their media offerings so I don't see any of it.

That sounds cool - and confusing. I'm intrigued.

I'm all for new creative forms. But not like, "well, this is the wrong aspect ratio for this story, but we're not going to excite our viewers enough to get them to rotate their phone so oh well"
 
Batutta said:
I thought Prime Video comes automatically with Amazon Prime?
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Well I get free Prime shipping ever since I made a complaint like 7 years ago. But none of the media that comes with Prime.

I should get my wife to sign up and do a trial so we can check it out. But we still need to do a Disney+ trial to see the mandalorian, and go back to Netflix for the new season of altered Carbon. My god so much to watch
 
Lot of stuff worth watching on Prime. I actually watch it more than Netflix. Man In The High Castle was genius.
 
It's because Bezos isn't interested in making a profit. He just wants to own markets ... for everthing.
 
JUST saw a commercial for Quibi during the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular on NBC. The show actually looked good, but sadly it's on Quibi and not Netflix or Amazon or Hulu or HBO or Showtime or anything else...
 
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