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Thursday, June 28, 2007

Couple links: XLNT Ads, Starbucks, The Film Department, Jaman on AppleTV

I'm down in Mountain View at Under the Radar today -- lots of interesting company presentations. Coolest so far: XLNT Ads, an agency for user-generated advertising.

Some links worth looking at today:

- 'Starbucks Sticks With Film-Promotion Plan', from WSJ.com. From the piece:

    The Seattle coffee chain plans to announce today that it has picked "Arctic Tale," from Paramount Classics and National Geographic Films, as its second movie venture. The film is about a walrus pup and a polar bear who grow up and find their frozen environment melting underneath them.

    Starbucks's much-anticipated entry into the film business last year ended up a disappointment for the company. The chain marketed the uplifting spelling bee tale "Akeelah and the Bee" in its stores by printing hard-to-spell words on cup sleeves and asking baristas to tell customers about the film. Executives have conceded that the movie's ticket sales came in lower than they had hoped for.


- From Anne Thompson/Variety: 'Gill and Sacker Launch New Film Department.' The opening paragraph:

    As the movie business slowly moves away from the outmoded inflated big-studio model, momentum is starting to shift to the stand-alone indies that are in a position to deliver to the studios high-quality mid-range commercial pictures for a price. Of course that's easier said than done. And many folks are having the same idea at the same time. So will ex-Miramax and Warner Indie Pictures exec Mark Gill and partner Neil Sacker, ex of the Bob Yari Group as well as Miramax, be able to pull off their new financing and production co. The Film Department, which they've raised $200 million to launch?

They plan to make about six films a year, at $10 to $35 million a piece.

- Jaman has figured out how to get its indie movies onto AppleTV, reports Om Malik.

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4 Comments:

  • I've been following Jaman for a while now.

    They certainly are doing everything right, the delivery is solid and slick, the content good.

    Beside the smart and stylish tech their developing relationship with the film industry is going to be their biggest asset. They're engaging on numerous levels with film makers and not solely with larger studios as Apple do.

    Sometimes the opportunities for independent content producers can be overshadowed by the noisier clip culture YouTube and others offer. Jaman found a model for online film delivery that works well with existing distribution patterns and it's great to see them possibly coming out on AppleTV.

    Tommy Weir

    By Blogger TommyW, at 3:09 AM  

  • XLNTAds still hasn't launched but I'm actively involved in representing the voice of creators. If you're interested in getting involved please let me know!

    By Blogger Nalts, at 9:59 PM  

  • Anybody have contact info for "The Film Department" yet?

    By Blogger strangeframe, at 2:50 AM  

  • I do! You can email me directly at dfarrar@jaman.com and I'll put you in touch with our Acquisitions folks.

    I've also made a tutorial for filmmakers here

    Janey, thanks for the props. We're on the cusp of announcing some really cool film library deals that we worked out in Cannes... I'm not at liberty to talk about them, but keep your eye on the blog: http://blog.jaman.com

    Happy watching!
    - Danielle (aka Jamanista)

    By Blogger Danielle Farrar, at 1:06 PM  

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