The new on-demand movie streaming service, Filmstruck Curzon promises to fill in the gaps in your dream stream wish list!

I love films. I love watching films and talking about films. I love film soundtracks more than ‘normal’ music and annoyingly, so I’m told, I love inaccurately quoting films while other people are trying to listen to the film. I have three streaming subscriptions with the big names and they satisfy most of my needs but one thing is missing. As a film geek I watch and re-watch them, and when I get a random urge to watch a particular title I find there’s still about a 20 percent chance that I won’t find it on any of my subscriptions, specially if it was made more than fifteen or twenty years ago (which is when a lot of the good s**t got made, let’s be honest) or if it was’t a big commercial success.

When I get a random urge to watch a particular title I find there's still about a 20 percent chance that I won't find it on any of my subscriptions, specially if it was made more than fifteen or twenty years ago
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A new collaboration between Turner International Digital Ventures & Innovation and Warner Bros. Digital Networks aims to change this. Launching today in the UK is a new Filmstruck Curzon subscription on-demand streaming service.

FilmStruck Curzon offers a broad and diverse collection of cinema’s most iconic and ground-breaking films, expertly curated by film lovers for film lovers. It covers genres such as mainstream, cult, independent, art house, classic and documentary film as well as the best of British and foreign cinema.

FilmStruck Curzon offers a broad and diverse collection of cinema’s most iconic and ground-breaking films, expertly curated by and for film lovers
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This slick looking, premium, movie streaming service draws primarily on the extensive Warner Bros. library and the Criterion Collection, as well as other global and local content partners which in the UK include Curzon Artificial Eye, Park Circus and Kew Media Group. It also promises the key supplements DVD and Blu-Ray fans have become used to with audio commentaries by filmmakers and scholars, restored director’s cuts, cast interviews, hosted intros and original artwork with more to come as FilmStruck Curzon evolves.

This slick looking, premium, movie streaming service draws primarily on the extensive Warner Bros. library and the Criterion Collection
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New content added each month allows subscribers to instantly stream legendary releases
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The UK is the joint venture’s initial launch market in what is planned as a multi-market roll-out over the next two years. The service will launch in the UK first as FilmStruck Curzon, in collaboration with the iconic independent cinema brand. With a growing catalogue of critically acclaimed & prize-winning films distributed via Curzon Artificial Eye, and over 80 years experience providing films in its chain of Curzon Cinemas, the company also knows a bit about on-demand, already entertaining seven million customers through its existing subscription streaming platform, Curzon Home Cinema.

FilmStruck Curzon will add new content each month allowing subscribers to instantly stream legendary releases as varied as Christian Bale’s explosive American Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock’s all-time classic North by Northwest, or the cult phenomenon Little Shop of Horrors. Subscribers will discover powerful performances and celebrated movies from the rich libraries of International content partners Warner Bros. (Magnolia (1999); Mystic River (2003); My Own Private Idaho (1991) and The Criterion Collection will feature, complete Criterion Editions and Criterion mini-documentaries and films including (Diabolique (1996), Tampopo (1985); Black Orpheus (1959).

Critically acclaimed films, hard-to-find gems and cult favourites. Filmstruck Curzon gives you access to some of the world’s greatest films, shown uncut and commercial-free, just as the director intended
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The films are also presented in Themes including British Film, Documentary, past BAFTA & Oscar ® winners, Directors collections such as Ingmar Bergman, plus Rock Stars on Film, Cult Picks of the Month and popular genres such as Film Noir, Sci-Fi and Horror to name just a few. The stream quality promises to make the movies look their best with the maximum stream running at 1080p using either x264/H.264 codec at up to 5Mbps with Dolby AAC audio, this might be throttled by your ISP or bandwidth limitations but should look pretty good!

Instant streaming access to critically acclaimed films, hard-to-find gems, and cult favourites from the extensive Warner Bros. library and the Criterion Collection, as well as other global and local content partners, gives access to some of the world’s greatest films, shown uncut and commercial-free, just as the director intended.

This all sounds pretty exciting but where can you watch it? As of launch today the platforms will include Amazon Fire TV, Web, iOS and Android devices, as well as Apple TV. For myself, I would be looking for a PS4 app to be released soon and they do promise more devices will be added, so finger crossed as watching through a browser is never ideal. I’m going to get stuck in tonight and have already added The Maltese Falcon, Solaris (No not the Clooney one!) and Orson Welles’ excellent F for Fake to my watch list, but do try it out for yourselves, sign up at Filmstruck.com to explore this new service with an introductory 14 day free trial.

Subscriptions are available in two tiers:

1. Monthly subscription – £5.99 per month
2. Annual subscription – £59.00 per year – receive 2 months free

Sign up to Filmstruck Curzon to explore this new service with an introductory 14 day free trial
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Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post A Dream Stream? appeared first on Tech Trends.

Speed Kills is an epic experience that sets the bar high for cinematic VR.

Hannibal Pictures’ upcoming feature film Speed Kills will have one of the longest accompanying VR experiences ever brought to market, delivering over an hour of cinematic VR content. Produced by TopDogVR and Richard Del Castro, Guy Griffithe and Travis Cloyd, it will be cut into eight parts and delivered to VR platforms in episodic format as a free downloadable app in late 2017.

Speed Kills is John Travolta's first VR project
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The film will be cut into eight parts and delivered to VR platforms in episodic format
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Based on the book by Arthur J. Harris Speed Kills is inspired by the life of a speedboat racing champion who also created some of the most enduring boat brands in the industry, including Donzi Marine, Blue Thunder, and the legendary Cigarette. It’s currently in post production and will premiere Spring 2018.

This will be John Travolta’s VR debut, alongside a cast that also includes Katheryn Winnick (Vikings), Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan) and Kellan Lutz (Twilight).

When I direct VR I’m also directing our crews and solving these issues on the fly
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Director Travis Cloyd hopes this will set the bar for celebrity-driven cinematic virtual reality:

“How often can you stand next to a legend going 60 mph in a speedboat? Thanks to VR, this is finally a possibility, and we are excited to be crafting compelling, action-packed content for this medium.

Lutz, who plays Robbie Reemer, a speedboat racing, drug-running kingpin, described the filming process as “remarkable.” In one scene, you watch Lutz sling drug deals out at sea and get chased by the DEA while trying to offload his haul. With the use of VR drones and VR cameras strapped to speed boats racing on the open water.

“It’s definitely different than filming a standard format feature; less time, smaller crew, and really innovative technology,” he says.

Cinematographer Andrzej Sekula, who was the DP in Pulp Fiction, says he found building and plotting out the camera direction for a full 360 stage very interesting:

“This was my first time working with virtual reality and I can see why this will be a key part of the future of film,” He says, “I was fascinated by the cameras and shots. My career is built on building a shot and framing it, but they’ve taken that out the window. William Shakespeare once said, ‘Pleasure and action make the hours seem short,’ and it was truly a pleasure discussing and plotting shots with the VR team.”

Director Travis Cloyd hopes this will set the bar for celebrity-driven cinematic VR
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“We put together our own layout and script based on the feature film production,” explains Cloyd. “After reviewing the film’s script, we picked certain scenes we felt would lend themselves best to showcasing the story in 360. Sometimes we filmed while the crew was filming, other times we had our own standalone setup. In post production, we masked the crews.”

We reviewed the script to pick the scenes we felt would best lend themselves to VR
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Every single episode we created had countless crew removal and VFX work
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“People have no idea how hard it is to cut out crews and everything behind the frame of a standard 2D shot when your shooting 360 alongside a major production. There was a massive amount of clean-up issues when shooting within the standard production. Every single episode we created had countless crew removal and VFX work. Not to mention all the audio passes and color correction work that goes into 360. When we look into our head set display our POV is roughly 40-60 degrees of the entire 360 degree shot. So much of the overall spectrum has to go through this very long and intensive post process. 60+ minutes of VR is a lot of content. You will see an amazing experience with a combination of natural 360 shots and others where we had to repaint the entire backgrounds anywhere the rest of the crew was standing. It’s a ton of work, but in the final product you won’t know the difference”

Cloyd believes that shooting VR during the course of feature film production will eventually become the norm, but currently there are still major challenges to overcome and it is not the main priority, as it can’t be allowed to affect the bottom dollar or production schedule.

“To minimize interference with the production workflow, we worked around them and did not delay or affect their schedule in any way. We have to have a lot of production etiquette and can never allow the blame of missing feature shots to fall into the lap of the VR team. When I direct VR I’m not necessarily directing actors, but I’m also directing our crews and solving these issues on the fly. We need to stay on our toes and watch the A cam and B cam monitors to know where we can fit in and how close we can get to the actors without being in main production shots. These are spontaneous decisions and require us to block with production and have an open dialogue with the feature director, cinematographers and camera operators. In many cases we are the ultimate C cam team. Except maybe we have C cam, D cam and E cam’s out there. When the system is done right it’s very rewarding and the content is amazing.”

Ultimately, Cloyd concludes, working around the 360 spectrum is an incredibly complex dialogue with lots of moving parts, and the secret is to make all that work without anybody knowing they are there. “Like VR ghosts.”

This article was originally published on VRScout

Behind The Scenes with ‘Speed Kills’, John Travolta’s VR Debut via @alicebonasio https://t.co/zcXHb2cbjY pic.twitter.com/F2ibsbLEni

— VRScout (@VRScout) December 9, 2017

Tech Trends offers comprehensive Virtual Reality Consultancy services to support businesses looking to adopt VR/AR/MR technologies into their brand and communications strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Checking Out John Travolta’s Virtual Reality Debut appeared first on Tech Trends.