Using Pinterest to sell movie tickets

Today, Variety posted a feature on Pinterest's potential to sell movie tickets, an emerging arena being dubbed "p-commerce." Pinterest is a largely female space, and was originally fueled by a demographic not frequently identified as early adopters, young, tech-savvy Mormon housewives. It's where people post cutesy recipes, fashions, and DIY projects. Where can movies fit into this landscape?

Searches for "Iron Man 3" and "Great Gatsby" on Pinterest yield dramatically different results. Iron Man 3 pins mostly consist of red carpet photos and a few links to boys' costumes. Great Gatsby is richer ground for the female-dominated site, with plenty of Gatsby-inspired costumes, jewelry, and theme party ideas. Warner Bros.' official Great Gatsby page highlights stills, related photo shoots and sets, while there isn't one to be found for Iron Man 3. If you search by boards, however, there are hundreds of fans who created
Pinterest boards for both films.

Pin on "Iron Man 3 Inspired" eye makeup

From an e-commerce perspective, Pinterest is doing great, reportedly
accounting for 25% of online retail traffic and 20% of social commerce.
That's a solid groundwork. But just because people click through for
links to L.L. Bean doesn't mean they will do so for an event like a
movie ticket, which often requires coordination and setting a date.
Plenty of people walk up to the box office and buy a last-minute movie ticket, but on the Internet, movie tickets are not an impulse
buy.

Pin on Great Gatsby-themed Birthday Party

That said, there's a potential to leverage the amazing amount of fan
interest and fan-produced content, from homemade posters to pins about Great Gatsby-themed
wedding cakes and jewelry. As superhero and comic book movies have
dominated in the past decade, marketers have focused on reaching those
fanboys. Pinterest may prove an excellent marketing vehicle to reach
potential audiences for female-geared features. But e-commerce is a
stretch. In its infancy, Facebook too was heralded as a marketplace for
e-commerce. But it turned out that people wanted to keep their purchases
and their updates to friends separate. Pinterest does have an edge over
Facebook because users
associate with each other through their like-minded interests in
fashion, cooking, and other Pinterest-friendly topics. It's natural to
go ahead and purchase a blouse or recipe book that others are endorsing
on the site, while it's not seamless to do so on Facebook. Users are already engaging with movies on Pinterest, using the site as a forum to express their interest in movies. The
question is whether this interface can also be a natural fit as a place for people to buy
tickets.

Will Netflix be the new HBO?

By Sarah Sluis

Years after the technology for video streaming was first introduced, the technology's potential is finally being monetized in a big way. When Netflix first started video streaming (around 2005, if I remember correctly), I watched choppy videos on a computer that constantly seemed to be buffering. Now, my television has a "Netflix" button. I browse for and watch flawless, unpixelated videos without any problems 98% of the time. In recent months, Netflix has made three bold business decisions that promise to shake up the entertainment industry. One, they acquired the rights to the original series "House of Cards," putting Netflix in the company of premium cable channels like Showtime and HBO that combine movies with original content. Two, they raised prices and split their company in two, Netflix and Qwikster. DVD-by-mail and streaming will now be totally separate. Finally, they outbid HBO for exclusive rights to stream DreamWorks Animation's content. Netflix is looking a lot less like mail-order Blockbuster and more like HBO.

Neflix has always been a forward-thinking company. They named their company "Net"-flix when they were a DVD-by-mail service, and their company culture is something of a legend (check out this human resources-created Power Point, which includes an outline of their "unlimited vacation time" policy). It's interesting to see them make so many high-profile strategic changes in such a short period of time.

So far, it appears Netflix is primarily repositioning itself in the home entertainment market, meaning there won't be any threat for theatre owners. Blockbuster may be bankrupt, but Netflix can now count premium cable channels as well as Amazon Prime (which just signed a streaming deal with Fox's TV shows) as competition. There's also a chance that the cost of making these deals will raise the price of Netflix's services. The company reportedly paid DreamWorks $30 million a title, a steep sum when their customers currently pay just $7.99 a month for streaming. With over 20 million subscribers, Netflix does have hundreds of millions at play to acquire content, but it will be a struggle for the company to satisfy 100% of a customer's needs when they've separated DVD-by-mail into a separate business, Qwikster. The companies will now operate with separate queues and billing. Netflix may have willingly gotten rid of its most potent advantage in the business. It's no longer a one-stop shop for any title on a consumer's to-see list.

'The Lincoln Lawyer' joins the Groupon bandwagon

By Sarah Sluis

The Lincoln Lawyer seems like a fun genre movie, a nice throwback to the John Grisham adaptations starring Tom Cruise and Matt Damon. But it also registers as a movie that a lot of people will wait to watch at home. Enter: Groupon, which Lionsgate is using to incentivize people to see it at the theatre. Today in NYC, for example, one can get a voucher to see the movie for just $6, redeemable on Fandango. Considering movie tickets in NYC go for twice that, it's a pretty good deal.

Before I go any further, let me say this: I love Groupon, Living Social, BuyWithMe, BloomSpot, and all those other "daily deal" sites, so much so that I had to create a spreadsheet to keep track of all of my purchases and their expiration dates. They usually offer 50% discounts and have somehow managed to remove that feeling of indignity you can get when redeeming a coupon. So I'm naturally in favor of movie theatres jumping on the bandwagon. In fact, they already have. I've seen deals for cheap Fandango tickets on competitor Living Social. I'm also pretty sure I've seen some independent cinemas offer discounted tickets (though I can't confirm this because expired deals have a tricky way of disappearing).

But will it pay off for Lionsgate? According to most insiders, Groupon tends to charge a 50% commission, meaning that Lionsgate would get just $3 for each ticket, which would be split further with Fandango. But there are always the people who forget to redeem, or forget to buy but then decide they want to go anyway. As of this posting, 11,000 people in the NYC area bought tickets to The Lincoln Lawyer, totaling $66,000 in sales. It's unclear how this will be reflected in the weekend box office, but I'll be keeping my eye on this movie's performance. After all, Groupon's subscribers total 60 million, an awful lot of people to be messaged about one movie.

Slow but steady future for 3D films, says PricewaterhouseCoopers

By Sarah Sluis

The move to 3D, in terms of film history, should play out more like color than sound. All films transitioned from silent to sound in a snap--just a few years. To not convert was to become a box-office failure. But color, like 3D, was reserved for specific genres, like historical epics, fantasy, and children's movies, before becoming more widespread. I took a few of PricewaterhouseCoopers' predictions on the future of 3D movies and gave my own take on how it will all play out.

"Most 3D live-action production will be limited to sci-fi, horror and concert genres" Yes, but this is changing. Avatar is sci-fi, but it's also a tentpole, an awards hopeful, a James Cameron movie and an action/environmental/romance movie. As films with multiple genre identities are made in 3D, it will become easier for those "romance/action/comedy" movies to be made. Just today, Variety announced that the sequel to Zombieland, a horror/comedy will be filmed in 3D. The next Jackass sequel, a documentary/action/comedy, will be made in 3D. With its emphasis on live, improv events, Jackass is a cousin of the concert film, a popular choice for 3D, but certainty not part of the genre itself.

"3D-animated slates at Disney and DreamWorks will be closely scrutinized by rivals." Maybe. As far as I'm concerned, animation is already a lock for 3D. Animation is a medium grounded in fantasy, not reality, making 3D a very natural variation. I would worry if these animation studios decided to make a movie in 2D, which would indicate a slipping in 3D's profitability. As it stands, both Pixar and DreamWorks Animation are committed to producing all their upcoming films in 3D.

"Slow growth through 2014...because of lingering budgetary and creative concerns" You can look at this from the production side, but the audience side is just as important. A lot of people are resistant to seeing 3D movies because of their stereotype as a gimmicky concept that takes away from the narrative. That's not the case. As a former skeptic myself, watching movies like Coraline, Up, and even The Jonas Brothers 3D Concert Experience "glasses on" made those movies better. In the case of concert movies, 3D helps amp up the spectacle and gives a heightened sense of reality. No, you don't actually feel like you're there, but the dimensionality gives you a sense of the landscape, and the camera movements always make sure you have the best seat in the house. Up, compared to Coraline or Monsters vs. Aliens, uses very restrained 3D. The filmmakers either didn't author it in 3D from start to finish, but added it in later, or they chose to avoid having the images pop up and behind in a striking (and perhaps detracting) way. Takeaway point: 3D is flexible. It's not always about making you think something is coming right at you, but subtly adding depth of field. If 3D is adopted by dramas, comedies, and romances, I suspect this restrained look will be the norm. Regardless, watching a film with glasses is on its way to becoming a normal part of the moviegoing experience.

Will 3D technology be adopted like color, or like sound?

By Sarah Sluis

"3D is not like sound, but color," James Cameron recently pronounced. For those versed in film history, the statement is profound. If the 3D format is indeed like color, it could take decades for it to fully penetrate film production. It will first be used for event, fantasy, and animated films, before dramas, comedies, and Oscar contenders embrace the form. While the idea of 3D taking so long to become a default part of production seems like a strike against the format, it instead speaks to its longevity. 3D will not a passing gimmick, James Cameron is saying, but something that will contribute to a film's verisimilitude.

When sound was introduced, with The Jazz Singer, it took just a few years for all films to be produced using sound. Howard Hughes famously re-did much of his film Hell's Angels once it appeared that sound was essential for blockbuster success. Title cards, along with mouthed words, felt fake, while sound made everything real--the technology brought the form closer to the plays and vaudeville shows film so often emulated.

Color, on the other, hand, was viewed as unrealistic, expensive, or suitable only for event films. The saturated colors in The Wizard of Oz, for example, are used in the fantasy segment, not the Kansas part. While that film used the newer three-strip Technicolor process, its technological predecessors were clearly fake and gimmicky, much like 1950s 3D technology. Viewers were skeptical. In the early days of the nickelodeons, select frames (like a fire, or a

woman's dress) would be hand-painted for effect. However meticulously

done, they have an unfortunate pulsating effect

due to the difficulty of consistently drawing within the lines. The

two-tone Technicolor process that succeeded it likewise has an

inaccuracy that I find charming but contemporaneous audiences found

too stylized and unreal. Three-strip Technicolor was the breakthrough that finally made color look real, just like Real D and its ilk, but it still took decades before an average film would use the process.

As with color, Hollywood will probably begin to give out awards to its 3D films, but it won't be a condition for success. Gone with the Wind (1939) won the Best Picture Oscar, but black & white films continued to win the top prize through the 1960s (The Apartment, anyone?). As for sound? Wings, a wartime romance blockbuster, won the first Best Picture Oscar, and the only one for a silent film. If Cameron's argument is correct, we shouldn't worry that a minority of films are being made in 3D, but trust that the animated, concert, and action films using the format are setting the tone. Someday, awards biopics like Milk and indie dramedies like Squid & The Whale will be made in 3D.

Films like Up, which use 3D as an accent, not for in-your-face gimmicks, speak to the future of the format. Pixar's film is the frontrunner for Best Animated Feature at the 2010 Oscars. If Cameron's right, his 3D adventure Avatar may be joining it at the podium, slowly ushering in an age where 3D isn't a selling point, but a prerequisite.