Media watch - January 12, 2023

Matt Gregory on the industry trends and media news from what has been a busy start to the year.

How is it that every year, the minute I turn my out of office off after the Christmas/ New Year break I am (once again) shocked that CES starts so soon and immediately sets the agenda in our news cycle. Here in the UK no other technology events (other than certain Apple Keynotes) get as much mainstream media attention. The buzz was around driverless cars (Sony partnering with Honda sounds pretty cool actually), bigger/ better TVs, the Metaverse and some pretty relevant (for us here at RedShark) advances in screen technology for video creatives. Here’s some of our coverage:

• Best TVs at CES (featuring Leica’s super cool Cine 1 laser projector)
• Best Laptops at CES (featuring ASUS’ new, very interesting 3D screen that I *need* to see)

We started RedShark 10 years ago. Back then Blackmagic, RED, GoPro and the folks at Magic Lantern (via the 5D hack) were doing their best to disrupt an industry that had been pretty exclusive up until that point. We championed these new players and the technology they were embracing (4K and beyond). NLEs were often turnkey and very expensive, video cameras were huge and needed a tonne of media before you started on a pretty complex post production workflow….

This year at CES you can see how truly democratised the video content industry really is. Hundreds of exhibitors were showing products and services made for TikTok creators and/ or having their stories told in real time by TikTok / Instagram / YouTube influencers. These platforms have been the ultimate disruptors and given an audience to a generation of content realtors that were locked out just 10 years ago. Personally I think that’s pretty cool, seeing so much investment going into the video space is great for us and our community - ultimately talent will always shine through and here at RedShark we will still take a little more serious and definitely more techcy look at the new tools out there for all of us to consider.

2023 and all that

Looking ahead to 2023 what can we expect? Definitely more clarity around the future of virtual production. Despite the great man himself Francis Ford Coppola binning his LED volume production set up in favour of “old fashioned'' green screen on his new, self funded $150m Megalopolis passion project, there is no denying there are more jobs than there are professionals to do them in a sector that is booming and at the cutting edge of innovation right now. Schools, studios and production companies are learning to embrace Unreal Engine driven projects which will certainly be an interesting space this year. 

Investment in technology companies took a massive hit in 2022. Inflation and the crypto deck of cards collapsing (not a bad thing IMO) has caused investors to be a lot more cautious. Maybe this will play into the hands of legacy technology companies? Looking at CES it does seem the news we have seen comes mainly from the main players, ASUS, DELL, Sony etc. 

However, one of the key takeaways is that events really are back as a place to showcase new products. Here at RedShark we are excited to start up our Connect events again (since we wrapped our last event in December 2019 over in LA it seems 2736473 different companies have launched products with “Connect” as part of their name which doesn’t annoy me even the tiniest little bit (honest). We will be in Barcelona in a few weeks for the ISE show (get in touch if you want to say hi) and have booked our trip to Vegas for NAB. 

Hollywood is definitely back too. After the huge success of Top Gun: Maverick in 2022, 2023 has a huge line up of major releases featuring John Wick, The Flash, Mission Impossible, Scream VI, Guardians of the Galaxy and of course - Barbie. Personally, I'm mostly looking forward to Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer more than anything. The industry is looking strong and we are going to take a deeper dive into some of the 2023 releases soon.

Let’s finish up not by using my laptop to join the (absolutely right and correct) chorus of condemnation surrounding Better Call Saul yet *again* being ignored by the Golden Globes…. No, let’s finish by taking a look at the markets (prices correct as of Jan 12th) and hopefully when I finish my last column this year they will be up from these prices. Here’s to a healthy, happy and successful 2023:

• Adobe: $340.04 
• AMD $69.06 
• Apple: $133.49
• AVID: $27.39
• DELL: $40.77
• Disney: $96.33
• Microsoft: $235.77
• Netflix: $327.26
• NVidea: $160.01
• Vivendum (formerly Vitec Group): £1068