互联网可能成为好莱坞的救星(ZT)

由时间草原 2008-03-09, 15:49

Coming soon即将来临
Feb 21st 2008
From The Economist print edition

互联网可能成为好莱坞的救星(ZT) Index

The internet could be a boon for Hollywood—but only if it can conquer its fears
互联网可能成为好莱坞的救星—但除非好莱坞能战胜对互联网的恐惧

TO SEE what the future of film distribution might look like, go to a website called ZML.com. It offers 1,700 films for download to personal computers, iPods or other hand-held devices, or to burn to DVD. It is inviting and easy to use, with detailed descriptions of each movie, editors' picks, customer reviews and screen stills. And the prices are reasonable: “Atonement”, for instance, costs $2.99. There is one small catch: ZML.com is a pirate site. Hollywood's movie studios, which are used to dealing with scruffier crews like Pirate Bay, a Swedish outfit,are aghast at how professional the newcomer is. “It looks like a fabulous legal website,” says one studio executive.
如果你想要知道未来的电影发行将是怎样，可以去这个网站ZML.com。它提供1700部电影可以下载到个人电脑，iPods，手携式的播放装置上，或者可以刻录成DVD。它很诱人也很容易使用，网站上有每部电影的详细介绍，编辑的精选，顾客的评价以及电影剧照。而且价钱也公道，比如说《赎罪》，只要2.99美元。但是这里有个小圈套，ZML.com是个非法网站。好莱坞的电影工作室，以前一直在对付一伙来自瑞典的非法团队，如Pirate Bay，现在好莱坞对ZML.com如此专业的新来者感到惊恐。“它看起来就像是棒极了合法网站。”一位好莱坞的制作人说。

The existence of ZML.com illustrates why Hollywood is in two minds about the web. On the one hand, the internet has brought a potent threat: pirates are plundering films and carrying off booty that rightfully belongs to the studios. Online piracy costs Hollywood less than the physical variety, ripping off DVDs, but the gap is closing. “We are more concerned about internet piracy than physical piracy, because controlling it is harder,” says Ron Wheeler, head of anti-piracy efforts at Fox Entertainment Group. Some in Hollywood believe that internet theft could even be the death of America's film industry.
ZML.com的存在说明了为什么好莱坞对于网络会有两种看法。一方面，互联网带来潜在的威胁：盗版者窃取电影，本属于制作商的电影成了他们的战利品。互联网的盗版比实体DVD盗版少，但是现在这个差距正在缩小。“我们现在更加比实体盗版更注重互联网盗版，因为控制非常的困难。”福克斯娱乐集团反盗版的负责人 Ron Wheeler说。

On the other hand, the internet offers Hollywood a great opportunity—which it has so far been slow to exploit. There is every reason to think that people will want online access to films, just as they do for music, newspapers, television and radio. ZML.com is proving that people will pay to download films to see at home when it suits them. And once people can buy or rent films on demand, the chances are that they will watch more of them.
另一方面，互联网给好莱坞提供了一个很好的机会----这并没有被很快发现。有足够的理由可以说人们需要通过网络获得电影，就像他们需要音乐，报纸，电视和广播一样。ZML.com证明了人们愿意付费在家下载那些他们需要的电影。一旦人们会根据需要买和租电影，那他们越要越多的机会就越大。

The web is already *** its presence felt in the heart of Tinseltown: this year's Oscars extravaganza, which is due to take place on February 24th, nearly fell victim to a strike by writers over pay for the distribution of their work on the internet. But for the time being Hollywood is mostly stuck in the physical world. Every year it sends thousands of heavy, expensive reels of film to cinemas by road. Only in the past year or so has it started an effort to send out some across the ether as ones and zeros. The DVD is a digital format, to be sure, but it comes in shrink-wrapped plastic.
网络已经让它成了好莱坞感到了它的存在：因为编剧抗议网络上电影发行的利润分配，原定在今年2月24日举行的奥斯卡颁奖礼差点成了受害者。但在这个时候，好莱坞是现实世界里最遭抗议的。每年它都要把成千上万又重又昂贵的电影膠片通过陆路交通送到电影院。直到去年左右，好莱坞才开始用0和1的数码来传送电影。DVD是以数码的格式，当然，也是压缩在塑胶碟片上。

Some studios are enthusiastic about the internet. “In 2008 we will move full speed ahead online,” says Thomas Lesinski, president of digital entertainment at Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles. “It's the great hope for new revenue for the movie business.” But the industry has by and large been slow: studios have only tentatively backed legal online film-download services. Television, by contrast, has been much faster to embrace the internet.
一些制作公司对于网络感到乐观。“2008年我们将全速进军网络。”位于洛杉矶的帕拉蒙特数字娱乐公司的主席Thomas Lesinski说。但是这个产业目前总体上是发展迟缓的：制作公司只是试验性的支持那些网络合法的电影下载服务商。相反，电视比电影更快的接受了互联网。

On the buses在车上

The choice of what is legally available online today is patchy. For instance, London buses are carrying ads for FilmOn.com, a new download service. It promises “tons and tons of great movies”, but you will not find “Mulva 2—Kill Teen Ape!” near the top of many people's lists. The internet has lots of legal sites like this, which promise thousands of top-class titles but in truth resemble the worst shelves of a bad video-rental store. ZML.com has a far better collection than most legitimate services do.
网络上可合法下载的电影选择参差不齐。例如，伦敦的公车上打广告的FilmOn.com,
一个新的下载服务商。它承诺将有“非常多的好电影”，但是你会发现“Mulva 2—Kill Teen Ape!”位于许多人观看前几位。网上又很多这样的合法网站，他们承诺将提供成千上万一流的电影下载，但事实上它们提供的片子，相当于最糟糕的电影出租商的最差的片子。ZML.com所收集的电影，远远好过这些合法服务商。

Another legal site, MovieFlix, based in Los Angeles, makes its money from independent films, student movies, straight-to-video titles and other eclectic fare. Its founders, Opher Mizrahi and Robert Moskovits, stay away from Hollywood studios because of their high fees. MovieFlix, which had revenues of $1.2m last year, is rare among download sites: it turns a profit. “We are the cockroaches of this space,” says Mr Mizrahi, “and we are survivors.”
另外一个位于洛杉矶的合法网站MovieFlix，多是通过独立电影，学生电影，不在电影院上演电影和其它折衷性的收费来赚钱。它的创办人，Opher Mizrahi 和 Robert Moskovits，因为昂贵费用而远离好莱坞。去年获得120万美元收益的MovieFlix是仅有的下载网站中盈利的一个。“我们是这个领域的蟑螂” Mizrahi先生说，“我们是幸存者。”

Many better-funded services have fared far worse. Movielink, which the studios themselves set up in 2001, with about $150m of start-up capital, was sold last August to Blockbuster, a video-rental chain, reportedly for less than $20m. CinemaNow, which counts Microsoft and Cisco Systems among its investors, started offering movies online in 1999 and is not yet *** a profit, to the surprise of its chief executive, Curt Marvis. Back then, he says, everyone thought that selling films online would be a huge business by now.
许多资金较充足的服务商运行情况更严重。Movielink，这个工作室成立于2001年投入1500万美元的资本，去年八月以少于200万美元出售给一个连锁影碟零售商Blockbuster。对于投资者而言有等同于微软和思科系统的CinemaNow，从1999年来是提供在线电影，但至今没有盈利，这让它的行政总裁Curt Marvis都大吃一惊。他说，那个时候每个人都认为到现在这个时候网上销售电影一定会是一个巨大商机。

Nor are the studios *** much money online. They have dozens of deals with internet services around the world. Warner Bros, for instance, supplies small selections of its films to 38 separate digital-distribution services, according to Screen Digest, a research firm in London. In 2006, estimates Screen Digest, online distribution of movies generated a total of $58m in America and western Europe. Screen Digest expects this to rise to $1.2 billion by 2011. But that is still below 5% of its forecast for total home-entertainment revenue.
电影制作公司也并没有从网上获利。他们和全世界很多网络服务商都有生意往来。例如，根据伦敦一家调研公司Screen Digest的调查，华纳兄弟向38个数码化发行服务商提供小部分产品。Screen Digest估计，2006年电影的网上销售在美国和西欧可以获得总数580万美元的收入，它预计，到2011年数额将增长到12亿美元。但这仍然低于对全部家庭娱乐收益预期的5%。

Consumer-electronics firms are longing to supply Hollywood films. According to Screen Digest, online viewing is most likely to take off on services based on their devices. So far, people have been most interested in buying films for gadgets such as Apple's iPod or Microsoft's Xbox 360. Apple's iTunes has captured almost 80% of the download-to-own market; the Xbox has won more than 70% of online rentals.
消费者电子用品公司都希望能够提供好莱坞电影。根据Screen Digest调查，人们观看在线观看电影多缘起于他们手中的设备。目前为止，人们最有兴趣的是因为苹果iPod和微软的Xbox 360这些小玩艺来购买电影。苹果的iTunes掌握了将近80%的个人下载使用的市场，Xbox则赢得了70%的网上出租的份额。

At the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January, everyone was waiting for Apple to announce that iTunes would start selling new movies from all six leading studios. Hitherto, only Disney had granted Apple access to new releases (Apple's chief executive, Steve Jobs, sits on Disney's board); a couple of other studios were giving it older titles. In the event, Apple's deal was disappointing: it got the go-ahead from all the studios only to rent their films, not to sell them. According to a person familiar with the negotiations, however, this was because of the Hollywood writers' strike over new media. Now the studios are waiting to see whether actors walk out over the same issue. When the labour troubles are past, Apple is likely to get a proper download-to-own deal with all six studios. For Hollywood, this would be a big step towards the internet.
一月份在拉斯韦加斯举行的国际消费者电子用品展览中，所有人都在等待苹果公布iTune将开始出售来自六个最顶级的制作商的新电影。迄今为止，仅有迪斯尼一家授予了苹果公司获得最新电影的放映权(苹果公司的行政总裁，Steve Jobs进入了迪斯尼的董事会)；
其他的一些制作公司只提供了一些陈旧的电影。在这个事件上，苹果的这出生意让人失望：它仅在出租制作商提供的电影上获得了优先权，但是在出售电影上并没有。但是，根据一个了解这次谈判的人士介绍，这是因为好莱坞的编剧们抗议新媒体。现在制作公司在等待看好莱坞的演员们是否也会以同样的原因上街抗议。在这场劳资纠纷过去之后，苹果公司可能会与六家制作公司达成专属的个人下载生意。对于好莱坞来说，这将是对互联网的很大进步。

The colour of money金钱的颜色
There are two broad reasons for Hollywood's tardiness. The main one is the industry's aversion to *** big changes to its business model. In part this is because it takes so much risk in its day-to-day operations. “Every weekend, we sit on pins and needles watching to see if our films will flop,” explains a studio executive, “and that doesn't encourage risk-taking in the business as a whole.” There is a less defensible explanation too: “Hollywood's value system is not necessarily about growth,” says Dan Jansen, who runs the Boston Consulting Group's media practice. “It's about recognition for films.”
好莱坞的迟缓有两个原因。主要的一个是好莱坞厌恶改变它的商业模式。一部分原因是好莱坞日常运作中已经存在太多的风险。“每个周末，我们都会如坐针毡的看我们的电影是否会失败”电影制作人解释说，“作为整体我们并不鼓励在生意上冒险。”还有不那么辩护性的解释：“好莱坞的价值体系并不是要求一定要成长”波士顿咨询公司负责媒体咨询的Dan Jansen说，“是关于对电影的认可。”

For the moment, most people are still happy with DVDs, so the studios have had little incentive to switch to an unproven new format. The DVD business is huge, bringing in $23.4 billion in America last year, against $9.6 billion from the box office. The studios are terrified of damaging that source of revenue. In 2006, when Disney made a deal with Apple to sell movies via iTunes, Wal-Mart, America's biggest retailer, reportedly threatened to retaliate: the internet, after all, bypasses it. Wal-Mart accounts for about 40% of DVD sales in the United States and if it sharply cut shelf-space for DVDs, the lost sales would far outweigh new digital sales in the near term. At the end of last year Wal-Mart shut its ten-month-old movie-download site. Now that it no longer has a foot in the internet camp, studios expect it to take a harder line against any further efforts they may make to favour online distribution.
目前，很多人满足于有DVD，所以制作公司几乎没有动机去转向另一种未经实践证明的新形式。DVD 的生意是巨大的，给美国去年带来了234亿美元的收入，而票房的收入是96亿美元。制作公司很害怕会破坏这个收入来源，在2006年，当迪斯尼和苹果公司谈生意想通过iTune出售电影时，美国最大的零售商沃尔玛，据报道说它威胁将要报复：毕竟互联网超过了它。沃尔玛在美国的DVD销售中占有40%的份额，如果它锐减DVD 在货架上的销售，在近期内，失去的那些销售额将远远超出新的数码产品的销售。在去年年末，沃尔玛关掉了它仅十个月电影下载网站。现在，再也不再涉足于网络领域，制作公司也希望它对任何支持网络销售的发行采取强硬的态度。

Not everyone agrees, however. Wal-Mart and other big retailers rely heavily on DVDs to bring higher-income people into their stores, says a studio executive. “So they don't have a leg to stand on threatening to pull shelf-space.” For this reason, he believes that Hollywood should be able to cultivate online revenues without greatly disrupting its existing businesses.
但是，并不是每个人都同意。沃尔玛和其他的零售商都很大程度上依赖于DVD，DVD把高收入的人带入商店，一位制片人说。“所以如果威胁到货架销售，它们并没有其他可以来支撑的点。”出于这个原因，他相信在不破坏现有的生意的情况下，好莱坞才有可能在网络上积累财富。

In any case, there are now signs that the DVD boom has come to an end—which should also encourage the studios to worry less about Wal-Mart and to move faster online. After its growth slowed in 2005 and 2006, spending on DVDs fell by 3% in 2007 (see chart 1). Some in the industry are pinning their hopes on fancier, “high-definition” discs—another physical format—rather than on the web. But so far, sales of such discs have been minuscule—largely because of a war between two formats, HD DVD and Blu-ray. Although the war ended this week, when Toshiba said it would abandon HD DVD, high-definition discs are unlikely to bring growth back to the home-entertainment business.
不论何种例子，种种迹象显示，DVD 的繁荣已经走向终结----这也促使制作商减少对沃尔玛的担忧并更快的转向网络。2005年和2006年，DVD的销售量开始增长放缓，2007年消费者在DVD上的花费下降了3%(如图一)。行业中的一些人把它们的希望放在更逼真精致和高清晰度影碟上----另外一种物理形式----而不是网络。但是，到目前为止，这类影碟的销售量是很微小的，主要是因为HD DVD和蓝光两种格式之间的竞争。尽管这场竞争在本月届苏，东芝宣布它将放弃HD DVD，高清晰影碟不太可能重新给家庭娱乐的生意带来增长。

（待续）

由时间草原 2008-03-09, 15:52

Indeed, Hollywood's desire to preserve its existing business rather than embrace a new one echoes its misgivings a few years ago about the DVD itself. In 1997, when the new format was about to be born, three studios, Paramount, Disney and Twentieth Century Fox, came out against it, remembers Warren Liebe***rb, who is widely credited with having fathered the product as it is today. They were worried that selling DVDs for $18 apiece would cannibalise their sales of video cassettes to rental stores for $65 each. None of the three studios is proud of that episode now.
的确，好莱坞渴望维护它现存的生意而不是拥抱新的生意，回应了它几年前对于DVD本身的忧虑。1997年当这种新的形式将要诞生的时候，三个制作公司，帕拉蒙特，迪斯尼和20世纪福克斯都出来反对，如今被视为DVD之父Warren Liebe***rb回忆说。他们担心以18美元一张出售DVD将侵蚀掉它们在零售店录像带的销售，65美元一盒。现在，这三家制作公司没有任何一家为当初的那一幕感到自豪。

Moreover, as well as boosting sales overall, the internet will make it easier for the studios to make money from their libraries—bricks-and-mortar retailers, after all, have limited shelf-space, and mostly stock new releases. Digital sales yield a higher profit margin too. Virtual distribution does away with manufacturing, packaging, transport and inventory costs. At the moment, the studios get $18 per film from a Wal-Mart or a Best Buy and about $16 for a digital sale, but because of the lower costs they make about $3 more on each film when sold electronically.
并且，除了提升整体的销售量，互联网还能让制作公司从他们的图书馆来赚取更多的钱----毕竟，传统的零售商只有有限的货架空间，并且很多存放的都是新货。数码化的销售也能带来很高的利润回报。虚拟世界的发行可以不涉及制造，打包，运输和存储的开支。当前，制作公司从沃尔玛和百思买出售一部电影中获得18美元，从数码化的销售中获得16美元，但是因为较低的成本开支，每部电影在以电子方式出售时，可以多获得3美元的收入。

A bigger risk than angering Wal-Mart is that Hollywood will be undone by internet pirates. Imaginative, reasonably priced legal products are the best antidote to piracy: anti-piracy heads at the studios, indeed, clamour for well stocked, convenient movie-downloading services. Fox's Mr Wheeler says that content owners should offer people “ubiquitous access to our products online at reasonable prices”. Mr Wheeler also hopes that internet-service providers can be drafted into the fight. In November France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, backed a proposal to require ISPs to detect and cut off conspicuous pirates. Britain's government is said to be considering a similar law.
比惹火沃尔玛更大的一个风险是互联网的盗版将破坏好莱坞。可以想象，价钱公道的合法产品是对付盗版的最佳手段：从制作公司开始防盗版，的确，呼吁良好储存，方便的下载服务。福克斯的Wheeler先生说，内容拥有者应该让人们能“获得绝无仅有的，价格合理的网上电影服务。”Wheeler也希望互联网服务提供者能够加入这场抗争。11月份法国总统萨科齐表示支持一项法案，需要互联网服务提供上监测并阻断可疑的盗版行为。英国政府也表示会考虑出台类似的法律。

The second reason for Hollywood's sluggishness is that the studios and the consumer-electronics industry have not overcome three technological hurdles. Downloading a film still takes a long time—in America, about 30-40 minutes on average (see chart 2). Movies in high-definition format would take about four times that. But broadband speeds are increasing all the time. In Japan and South Korea it now takes between five and ten minutes to download a film in standard definition.
好莱坞动作迟缓的第二个原因是因为制作公司和数码消费者产业还没有突破三个技术障碍。下载电影还需要很长的时间---在美国平均大约需要30到40分钟 (见图2)。高清晰模式的电影可能需要4倍于此的时间。但是宽频的速度一直在加快。在日本和韩国，现在只要五到十分钟就可以下载一部标准清晰度的电影。

互联网可能成为好莱坞的救星(ZT) Index

Another obstacle is that most people want to watch films on television, not on personal computers—especially if they have wide, “home-theatre” TV screens. Products connecting PCs and televisions have been available for years but have not caught on, because they are hard to install and operate. That is changing. Apple has just overhauled its linking gadget, Apple TV, to make it easier to use. At the CES in Las Vegas, says Alan Bell, Paramount's chief technology officer, new televisions and set-top boxes that connect directly to the internet were on show, “so the PC is not the bottleneck in getting digital content from internet services to the TV screen that people saw a year ago.”
另外一个障碍就是很多人希望在电视上看电影，而不是在个人电脑上，特别是如果人们拥有宽屏“家庭影院”的电视屏幕。连接电脑和电视的产品几年前就已经有了，但是并没有流行，因为这些仪器很难安装和操作。这一切都在变化，苹果刚刚彻底检修了它的小型连接物件，苹果电视，让它能够很容易使用。在拉斯维加斯的CES，帕拉蒙特的首席技术官Allan Bell说，可以直接和网络连接的新型电视和它的机顶盒已经有售了，“所以电脑不再是从几年前电视从网络获得数码内容的瓶颈了。”

The last hurdle, and perhaps the highest, is the lack of common standards among websites and devices. “Imagine if you went to Wal-Mart to buy a new DVD player and then found that your DVDs from Best Buy didn't work on it,” says Mitch Singer, chief technology officer of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Movies on the internet, he says, is “a format war on steroids”. Each download store sells different usage rights. Hollywood is trying to do something about this. Late last year a group of studios, retailers and consumer-electronics firms met to discuss an idea of Mr Singer's for a standardised electronic movie product called Open Market. But the talks are at an early stage, and it will be tricky to get companies such as Apple and Microsoft to agree to common standards.
最后一个猛烈冲击，可能也是最大的一个，就是网站和设备之间缺乏一个共同的标准。“想象一下，如果你去沃尔玛买新的DVD播放器，然后发现你从百思买那里买的DVD却没法播放”索尼娱乐的首席科技官员Mitch Singer说。他说，互联网上的电影处于一场“类固醇的格式战”。任何一个提供下载的商铺都出售不一样的使用版权。好莱坞想为此做一些努力。去年年底，一群制作公司，零售商和数码消费者公司开会讨论，Singer先生提出的“开放市场”这个把数码电影产品标准化想法。但是，商谈还在初步阶段，让苹果和微软这样的公司同意使用同样的标准，是有一定难度的。

Hollywood's dealings with the consumer-gadget companies also betray its habitual caution. The studios fear that Apple could become the Wal-Mart of the internet—a giant with power to push them around, continually pressing prices down. Maintaining pricing online is a particular worry. “People think that if it's online it should be free,” says one studio head. One answer to pricing pressure online, though not a complete one, would be to experiment with putting advertisements around films. Last year Paramount gave a selection of films to a service called Joostthat streams them free, supported by advertising. Movies are doing very well on the service, says Mr Lesinski. Paramount plans to conduct more online experiments in 2008, he says. The lion's share of its library and all its new releases will be on the internet within a year or two.
好莱坞与消费者小商品公司的生意也违背了它惯有的谨慎。制片公司害怕苹果会成为互联网上的沃尔玛----这强有力的巨人能把它们推得团团转，并且不断的压低价钱。维持互联网上的价钱也是他们一个特别的忧虑。“人们认为如果是互联网上的，那它应该是免费的”，一位制作公司的头说。对于互联网上的价格压力有一个回答，也许不是一个全面的回答，那就是可以试验着在电影上投放广告。去年帕拉蒙特把它们选出的一些电影提供给一个叫做Joost的服务商用于免费的播放，由广告来进行支持。Lesinski先生说，基于这个服务的电影播放效果很好。他说，帕拉蒙特计划在2008年做更多的这方面的在线试验。它的图书馆中最大最好的一部分以及所有新发行的电影都会在一两年都会放到互联网上。

Short of selling films on it, Hollywood certainly knows how to use the internet to its advantage. Its use of viral online marketing is one of the most sophisticated of any industry. Jeff Berg, chairman and chief executive of ICM, a talent agency, says that about 8% of the total marketing spending on films goes to the internet; in five years' time, the web will take 20%. Paramount's “Cloverfield”, a low-budget monster movie shot as if by an amateur with a camcorder, earned $40m in its opening weekend in American cinemas last month, crushing the competition. It built its audience on the internet: a mysterious trailer for another, unidentified movie led to a website and started an online treasure-hunt for more clues. Popular movie websites such as aintitcool.com buzzed for months about the mystery film.
尽管不擅长于出售电影，好莱坞显然知道怎样利用互联网来发挥长处。它使用的病毒互联网营销就是所有行业中最复杂的一种。创作公司ICM的主席和首席执行官Jeff Berg说，花在电影上的所有营销中的8%都是在互联网上；在五年的时间里，网络将会占到20%。帕拉蒙特的“苜蓿地”，一部低成本巨片而且仿佛是一个摄像业余爱好者拍摄的片子，上个月在上映的那个周末就在美国赚了4000万美元，闯入了票房竞争。它通过互联网来建立起它的观众：一个接一个的神秘电影预告片，未知的电影指向了一个网站，并且开始了一场在线的寻宝行动以发掘更多的线索。热门的电影网站，例如aintitcool.com，关于这个电影热闹了好几个月。

How the web was won互联网如何取得胜利
Creatively, too, Hollywood is harnessing the internet. Studios are using it to find global pockets of interest. “If there's 1m people around the world who are interested in ice-fishing,” says Jeremy Zimmer, co-founder of United Talent Agency, “we can make a movie for them.” Studios are using their customers' opinions to shape their films. “Snakes on a Plane”, for instance, started off in development as a horror film. As the project got attention online its maker, New Line Cinema, listened, and changed the plot to be more comic in tone. Blowtorch, a young media company *** video content for 18- to 24-year-olds, is pushing this further. It will allow audiences to influence its movies via the web. They will be invited to vote on elements of a film's soundtrack, an actor's wardrobe, or even character development.
同样具有创造性的是，好莱坞也控制着互联网。制作公司也利用它寻找全世界人的钱包。“如果全球有100万人对冰上钓鱼有兴趣”联合创作组织的创始人Jeremy Zimmer说，“我们就能为他们制作一部电影。”制作公司利用观众们的想法来塑造他们的电影。如果一个计划引起了网络上的关注，那么它的制造商，New Line Cinema，倾听并改变故事的情节让它在基调上更加具有戏剧性。Blowtorch，这个专门为18到24岁的观众制作节目的年轻的媒体公司还更前进了一步，它让观众们能通过网络去影响电影。观众们被邀请为电影的配乐，演员的服装，甚至人物个性的发展投票。

（待续）

由时间草原 2008-03-09, 15:55

Don't lose it in your popcorn.ICM's boss believes that the internet will lower barriers to entry for new film-makers. “Sites will spring up specialising in independent films and short movies,” says Mr Berg, “and these will be showcases, similar to film festivals.” Jaman.com, a download service for independent films from around the world, is a good example. The makers of “Indoctrinate-U”, an independent film about a lack of free speech at American universities, have used the internet to build an audience. The movie's website invites people to sign up with zip codes; if enough do, local screenings are arranged. United Talent Agency has set up a special internet unit, UTA Online, to find and develop new talent. The new unit encourages people to get in touch—unheard of in the original “don't call us” business.
别把它丢失在你的爆米花里，ICM公司的老板认为，互联网能够降低新的电影拍摄者的进入门槛。“独立电影和电影短片的网站增长很快”Berg先生说，“网上会有一些电影展示，和电影节差不多。”Jaman.com, 一个全球性的独立电影下载服务网站，就是一个好的例子。独立电影Indoctrinate-U讲述的是美国的大学缺少言论自由，他的导演就是利用网络来建立观众群。这个电影网站要求人们用邮政区号来注册，如果注册数量足够大，就会安排在该地放映这部电影。联合创作组织成立了一个特别的互联网组织，UTA在线，来寻找和发展新的创作人才。新的组织鼓励人们来联系，这是在原本那些常说“不要找我们”的生意里没有听说过的。

In the long term, many people expect that the internet could undermine Hollywood's system of exclusive “windows”. Cinemas get a film to themselves for a period of weeks, then it goes to DVD, then to video-on-demand and online services, then pay-cable television, and so on. And many films are still released in different countries at different times, usually starting in America. The system is a gift to pirates. But the studios are wedded to it, especially the cinema window.
长期来看，很多人期盼互联网能够打破好莱坞体系作为唯一的“票房窗口”。电影院自己把电影播了几个星期，然后做成DVD，接着是视频点播和在线服务，再然后是付费电视等等。许多电影还在不同的国家不同的时间放映，一般是从美国开始。这个体系结果成了盗版者的礼物。但是制作公司已经和这个体系结合在一起，特别是电影院票房。

The internet creates immediate global awareness of movies, says Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix, a DVD rental-by-mail company, so the studios are increasingly choosing to release films at the same time everywhere. They have already shortened their windows, he says, and that could be a step towards getting rid of them. As people buy home-theatre systems and the convenience of the internet makes it even harder to get people out of their homes, the cinema window will come under ever greater pressure.
DVD邮寄租赁公司Netflix的总执行官说，互联网让全球都迅速的关注到电影，因此制作公司越来越多开始选择全球同步上映新电影。他说，他们也缩短了电影档期，他们也正想这样一步步摆脱档期。因为人们开始购买家庭影院系统，而且互联网带来的舒适让观众越来越来难走出家门，电影院的放映档期承受着越来越大的压力。

It will doubtless take Hollywood a few more years to work out how to deliver films over the internet. Meanwhile, studios and retailers are poised to introduce movie-download kiosks, using flash memory. Several companies, such as MOD Systems, of Los Angeles, have cut download times to a few minutes; Ireland's Porto Media claims a time of 17 seconds. The idea is to put kiosks in such places as shops, airports and petrol stations. Using Porto Media's system, films are downloaded onto a tiny device (pictured) which plugs into dock attached to a television. Kiosks could hold more titles than physical video shops and would never be out of stock. Twentieth Century Fox is looking at several competing kiosks, says Mike Dunn, head of the studio's home-entertainment unit. It will test them this year.
毫无疑问，好莱坞还要花上好几年才能研发出怎样在网上传送电影。同时，制造公司和零售商都准备在推出使用闪存的电影下载亭。其他的公司，例如洛杉矶的MOD系统，已经把下载时间减少到几分钟；爱尔兰的Porto Media声称他们的时间只要17秒。他们的想法是把下载亭诸如商店，飞机场和加油站。使用MOD系统的话，电影可以下载到小型的播放仪器上，并且可以连接到电视上。下载亭可以存放比音像商店更多的电影，并且永远不会缺货。制作公司家庭娱乐组的负责人Mike Dunn说，二十世纪福克斯正在考察几个竞争的下载亭。今年会对他们进行测试。

“The flash-memory-enabled kiosk is an interim solution which overcomes many of the weaknesses of the present model and the current deficiencies of the internet,” says Mr Liebe***rb, who is on the board of MOD Systems. Customers will get used to downloading films and transferring them between devices, which will prepare them for proper online distribution. Kiosks will make money for retailers too, so that they could help the studios keep Wal-Mart and others sweet. That is the kind of careful step forward that even Hollywood can dare to take.
“适用于闪存的下载亭是一种过渡期的解决方式，这能克服现在许多下载模式的弱点，以及目前互联网的缺陷”MOD系统的董事Liebe***r先生说。顾客将会习惯于下载电影并且把电影在不同的存储器之间转存，这将为今后在网络上进行发行做准备。下载亭也同样会为零售商赚钱，所以它们也会让沃尔玛和其他零售商高兴。这会是好莱坞敢于接受的可以谨慎前进的一步。
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互联网可能成为好莱坞的救星(ZT)