Amazon Launches Online Movie Studio 68
angry tapir writes "Amazon.com is getting into the movie business by opening Amazon Studios, with the goal of using the Internet to put fresh movies on the big screen. The new Internet movie studio will allow writers to upload screenplays to its website where the global Internet audience can read them and offer feedback, or producers/directors can use them to make test movies. The test movies, which must be at least 70 minutes in length, can also be uploaded."
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ORLY? I already bought the rights.. see you in court.
http://www.ksn.com/mostpopular/story/Man-forced-to-eat-beard-during-fight/pow5UlsDDk6NQddMbS8dvw.cspx [ksn.com]
"Troy offered to buy it from me for $250. I paid $20 for it. He thought I was trying to cheat him," Westmoreland said. "One thing led to another, and before I knew it, there were knives and guns and everything just went haywire."
He says his brother had a mark on his neck, where a knife was held, but Harvey Westmoreland's loss was more permanent.
"They cut m
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Disregard that, this idea is public domain.
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Disregard that, this idea is public domain.
No it's not. It's actually a Disney property and Pixar is making a movie to be released 2012. The title is "PIG-E" pronounced 'piggy'.
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Pfft. That's just a ripoff of Pocahantas.
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DOOM: Repercussions of Evil
"John Stalvern waited. The lights above him blinked and sparked out of the air. There were demons in the base. He didn’t see them, but had expected them now for years. His warnings to Cernel Joson were not listenend to and now it was too late. Far too late for now, anyway.
John was a space marine for fourteen years. When he was young he watched the spaceships and he said to dad “I want to be on the ships daddy.”
Dad said “No! You will BE KILL BY DEMONS”
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The radio said “No, John. You are the demons”
It's over Johnny. Nothing is over.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Funny)
Feedback is always important with any product. This is a great new way to critique movies, perhaps before they even come out on the big screen
Yes, I think this will be very useful. Especially since feedback will accurately represent the opinions of the movie going public:
OpizzapieO First!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
babygirlz29 This is the most dumbs video Ever how lame losers 2who ever liked this just kiddin
omar29180589 I like this movie
CoolFilmz wtf! GAY!!!
skunkystar9 Who the fuck are you talking to exactly, fucking idiot, and by the way America sucks ass ! oh and fuck Jesus and all your religious bull shite, , hahaha, your a tool ! FUCK YOU
AMERICA1111 Ok idiot, you need a history lesson, are you too LAZY to learn the FACTS! You are probably PAID by me and the rest of the HARD WORKING AMERICAN WORKERS!
turdbugs i hate niggers
flyingcats lol i watch this when im high
.....
(random selection of actual youtube comments)
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Just filter out all comments with bad spelling, too many CAPS, less than 10 words or more than two consecutive exclamation marks.
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Just filter out all comments with bad spelling, too many CAPS, less than 10 words or more than two consecutive exclamation marks.
grammer NAZIi!!!!!
Yes! (Score:4, Funny)
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This could mean good things (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This could mean good things (Score:4, Insightful)
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2. the "limited activation keys" thing is SIMULTANEOUS, not total for all time, which for Kindle seems reasonable given that the books themselves are cheaper. At least it's a tradeoff you can decide upon for yourself, I thought it seemed reasonable. Also, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the story above.
hmm.. (Score:1)
This already exists (Score:3, Informative)
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Great but they miss the marketing push and existing mind share Amazon has.
Like not so long ago was mentioned again: there is only room for monopolies on the Internet.
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I'm not disputing Amazon has a significant advantage, just your crazy economic ideas.
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Great but they miss the marketing push and existing mind share Amazon has.
Like not so long ago was mentioned again: there is only room for monopolies on the Internet.
I dont know why people keep propogating this myth. A monopoly and a company with a large market share are two completely different things. Let's say you are walking aimlessly around the sahara desert and you come across my lone market stall selling bottled water and there is nobody else (and more importantly, no water) around for miles. In that area, for that resource I would be a monopoly. If you want it, you have no other choice but to get it from me. THAT'S what a real monopoly is.
Also - personally I can
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There is also http://www.wreckamovie.com/ [wreckamovie.com]
Next step is net funding (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.piratemyfilm.com/pages/how_it_works [piratemyfilm.com] shows how funding could work..
"The system automatically creates enough shares to match the funds request and then makes those shares available for PMF members to reserve."
Why just read and offer feedback when you could support a work from day one and perhaps share in some value.
Great funding for a tech movie, drama, historical documentary, extreme sports, romance, cars ect.
Get a forum or core supporters on any topic. No need for some grant, arts council or one person funding.
Shares of ... Hollywood accounting profits? (Score:1)
That funding scheme would sound a lot more interesting if the industry being funded actually had a reputation for paying a fair return on its profits.
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The funding scheme would be for one movie, no production profit moves, loans ect
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Screenplays with Moderation? (Score:3)
Re:Screenplays with Moderation? (Score:5, Funny)
Not sure, but if you go by the moderation here it we all know that the more you repeat something the funnier it is. There will be a Beowolf cluster of sharks with lasers ruled by an almighty army of ant overlords that we all for one welcome except in soviet russia where they welcome us as we fight off the vicious grammar Nazis. Staring Natalie Portman and Jon Katz. Its gold!
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Slashdot humour is solved by a self-consistent field method. You see a lot of the same gags because we're converging to the best joke. (There is an existence proof for the joke in question, and an accepted hypothesis that it involves leaves.)
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So you can read screenplays of other people? Are you allowed to moderate them up or down? If so, Hollywood could just buy the highest moderated screenplay :P What could possibly go wrong?
Reading a screenplay gives you very little indication of whether it will make a good film. It's like just seeing the lyrics to a rock song without the music.
For example, the name George Lucas at the top... (Score:2)
I was going to reply that it gives an indication of whether it could make a good film. And then I realised it's more likely to tell you that it couldn't.
What about the royalties? (Score:4, Interesting)
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By uploading a script, you give Amazon the exclusive option to purchase the script for 18 months. If they don't exercise the option, you get the rights back after the 18 months. If they do choose to buy it, you get $200,000 and they own all the rights.
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Ehm, but you can show it? You just can't sell it, but if they're interested you could wait 18 month and sell it to them if Amazon doesn't buy it.
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Litigation nightmare (Score:2)
We already know movie studios steal for a living. They steal from the consumer, the taxpayer, the director, the actors and anyone else involved. The term - Hollywood Accounting. Would Amazon be any different? Should we be making it easier for them to steal ideas now?
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What do screenplays require that RTF can't provide? It seems plenty of screenplay writing applications out there support RTF, and plenty of guides recommend using it to bridge between them, so it doesn't seem to lose formatting.
what could possibly go wrong? (Score:1)
i can see Todd Solondz slated to direct an internet effort: The Adventures Of Pedobear In A Series Of Tubes
seriously, this has far more potential to go bad than do good.
that said, Snakes On A Plane was pretty cool for what it was.
independent publishing (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm noticing that recently there has been a growing trend towards independent publication of books, music, movies, and other creative works.
I really hope this continues to take off (with enthusiastic support from our wallets and voices) because it weakens the influence of the *IAAs and various copyright consortia that have an annoying habit of lobbying governments for legislation in no one's favour (not even the artists) but their own.
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I'm kinda torn about this. Publication channels have editorial control, which means a lot of people along the way will have to work toward making the final product into something that people might actually want to buy and enjoy and tell others about. This trend toward independence tends to think that raw output from one person is something that can be sold. It's rarely the case. People expect quality control. People expect to buy the books from regular stores, so you need to work out the distribution channe
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In this particular case, we're talking about screenplays, not books. They are usually unknown to most people, unlike actors and directors. David Koepp worked on Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible and Spider-man, movies known by everyone and their dog. Does anyone besides people in the industry and heavy fans of the movies know him?
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Wonder what happens if you get a tasteful pornographic movie though.
Seriously reduced fappage, for a start.
One Word.... (Score:5, Informative)
Having read through the terms and conditions here, it looks like basically Amazon will pay you a token amount if the movie is made, whilst keeping all the millions for themselves.
Just another parasitic middleman in the movie industry. The very last thing the movie industry needs is more middlemen. If you work in the movie industry you will already be very familiar with this type of scam run by all sorts of people and all sorts of websites. As well as many other similar scams run for actors, directors and other movie professionals, or hopefuls.
Having Amazon now join in, adds an air of legitimacy to what is nothing more than a way of scamming writers. It may result in a break for a few amateur screenwriters. However with a bit of research, perseverance, and hard work, those same screenwriters could get a MUCH better deal for a viable screenplay.
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"Exploitation" Having read through the terms and conditions here, it looks like basically Amazon will pay you a token amount if the movie is made, whilst keeping all the millions for themselves. Just another parasitic middleman in the movie industry. The very last thing the movie industry needs is more middlemen. If you work in the movie industry you will already be very familiar with this type of scam run by all sorts of people and all sorts of websites. As well as many other similar scams run for actors, directors and other movie professionals, or hopefuls. Having Amazon now join in, adds an air of legitimacy to what is nothing more than a way of scamming writers. It may result in a break for a few amateur screenwriters. However with a bit of research, perseverance, and hard work, those same screenwriters could get a MUCH better deal for a viable screenplay.
Nobody's forcing you to put your screenplay on Amazon. If you want to go it alone, Amazon aren't doing anything to prevent you. What's the problem?
You're getting exposure on an extremely popular website, why should Amazon give you free publicity?
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What a rippoff (Score:2)
I sign the rights to my script away to Warner Bros. for the *chance* of winning a lousy $20,000? I don't think so. The only writers this will attract are really shitty ones, really dumb ones, and really desperate ones.
A different model (Score:2)
It could have been so much better (Score:1)