#video production company toronto

[videoproductioncomapny]

The Future of 3D Animation: Emerging Trends and Innovations in Toronto - VCM Interactive

VCM Interactive is a leading multimedia production company that specializes in creating engaging and impactful visual content. With a team of highly skilled professionals, VCM Interactive offers a wide range of services, including video production, animation, virtual reality, and interactive media solutions. Their dedication to delivering top-notch quality and innovative storytelling has earned them a stellar reputation among clients from various industries. To know more visit https://www.vcminteractive.com/ or call us at 647.401.1443.

[lafortis]

Btw I've never talked about it on here for obvious privacy and corporate espionage reasons but our parent company developed a subwoofer that's loud enough to kill god and potentially tear a spaceship apart

[thefoodgroupca]

The Top Video Production Companies in Toronto: Unleashing Creativity through Captivating Visuals

The creation of videos has emerged as a crucial channel for companies looking to engage their target audience and share their brand messages. Many video production companies in Toronto, a dynamic and multicultural city, are excellent at producing eye-catching images that have an impact. This article delves into the leading video production companies in Toronto, showcasing their distinct abilities, imaginative methods, and the significance they offer to enterprises looking to improve their internet visibility through captivating video content.

Mind-blowing Concepts and Storytelling

Toronto's video production industry pushes the boundaries of inventiveness. The unique narrative abilities of these companies are astounding. They regularly produce original, captivating stories that capture viewers' interest from the first to the last frame. Their storytelling skills aren't restricted to a specific audience or genre. They have extensive experience in various fields, including short films, music videos, corporate videos, lifestyle brands, etc. Everything they create is centered around an incredible idea with a provocative story at its heart. Their ability to integrate digital strategy into the narrative process, which guarantees that films enhance the client's brand, communicate its message, and elicit the intended audience's actions, is equally impressive.

High-Quality Production and Cutting-Edge Techniques

These video production firms aim for consistently higher quality; they don't just sit back and take it all in. To produce gorgeous, well-produced videos, Toronto's leading video production companies extensively use the best tools, software, and production techniques available. This calls for meticulous attention to detail at every level of the production process, including pre-production, casting, site scouting, filming, post-production, and final delivery. Modern post-production techniques such as color grading, sound design, CGI upgrades, and special effects complete their projects and produce visual masterpieces that leave audiences awestruck by their prominent sound, ultra-sharp image resolution, and amazing visual effects.

Versatility and Adaptability

Leading video production firms in Toronto provide a wide range of services. They know that no two companies are identical and that a customized strategy is necessary. They have a crew capable of handling live action, animation, 360° video, drone aerial footage, motion graphics, and virtual reality content that a client may require. Excellent flexibility is a constant; they quickly adapt to changes in the project, client needs, industry trends, and new technologies. Whether it's a big business project, a comical commercial, a fast-paced music video, or an emotional short film, they can make various video materials that appeal to different audiences.

Collaborative and Client-Focused Approach

Toronto's top video production businesses give the needs of its clients priority. They keep lines of communication open, include customers in the creative process, and attempt to comprehend their demands, industry, target market, and objectives. They take client feedback carefully and modify their work to ensure the finished film embodies the client's vision and brand. They work in a highly transparent collaborative method, keeping clients updated on project status and any obstacles they may have encountered. Their ability to create videos that successfully convey their clients' message and elicit a strong response from the target audience results from their client-focused strategy, strategic storytelling skills, and superior production. They have a distinguished reputation since they go above and beyond to satisfy their customers.

Conclusion

Video production businesses in Toronto are the epitome of creativity and innovation, as they develop visually captivating content that effectively engages viewers and tells brand stories. Toronto is known for its creative and innovative spirit. These businesses have become leaders in the video production sector thanks to their innovative ideas, superior production methods, adaptability, and teamwork-oriented mindset. Companies in Toronto looking to improve their internet visibility ought to take into account the advantages that these leading video production firms have to offer. These businesses use the power of engaging graphics to leave a lasting impact on viewers and drive organizations toward success in the digital era through their creativity and competence.

For more details, visit https://www.thefoodgroup.ca

[lseventsca]

 Premier Event Production Company: Turning Visions into Unforgettable Experiences

At our premier event production company, we have a passion for turning visions into unforgettable experiences. With our comprehensive event production services, we manage every aspect of your event from start to finish. Our dedicated team brings expertise in event planning, logistics, design, audiovisual, entertainment, and vendor coordination to ensure seamless execution. We work closely with our clients to understand their goals and vision, and then create a customized and immersive experience that exceeds expectations. Let us handle the details while you enjoy a stress-free and successful event that leaves a lasting impression on your audience.

[cinemetrixmediaca]

How Can a Video Production Company Help Your Business?

Video marketing has made a significant breakthrough for business. Be it an explainer video, social media advertising, or instructional visual content, businesses incorporate them into their daily marketing strategies to attain greater results. Are you planning to produce top-notch video content related to your startup? All you need is a professional video production company in Toronto. 

A video production company specializes in creating different types of videos for engaging audiences. These include - 

Explainer videos

Product demonstration videos

Client testimonial videos

Brand story videos

How-to videos

Event videos

Educational videos

Animated videos

Social media videos

No matter what you opt for, it can help your business in several ways. Let’s figure them out one by one. 

Tell your brand story

Videos are the most interesting way to tell your brand story. Hence, reaching out to a professional video production company is a good decision. Here, you can share your business goals and speak about your target audience and unique selling points so that they can craft your visual content. These engaging videos align with brand values, helping you develop your brand identity.  

Improve brand awareness

Experts say that visual content has the potential to drive more audience than textual content. You can put your brand message in the form of a compelling video and attract target audiences. If you explore the market, around 90% of people discover new products on social media or YouTube. In fact, 70% of them make a buying decision after watching a complete video ad. It shows that videos when included in a marketing strategy can help a business raise brand awareness. Seeking the help of a video production team you can certainly meet this business goal.  

A better understanding of your products/services

Video producers do proper research before crafting any informative or explainer video content. Especially, if the video is related to your brand products or services, the team initially gets insights into these essentials before bringing the creation into the limelight. As a result, these videos provide a better understanding of brand-related information to audiences, leading to increased engagement, longer viewing times, and higher conversion rates.

Build trust

Video production companies have expertise in producing professional videos involving content related to brand products, services, features, qualities, characteristics, positions, missions, testimonials, and so on. Sharing such video content with your potential customers gives you a chance to showcase your brand and enhance its credibility. Building trust through video content helps grow your customer base and revenue in return.    

Summary

In this digital landscape, visual content revolutionizes the way a brand communicate with its audience. It can elevate your business's marketing efforts, enhancing your brand image and sharing your message effectively with target audiences. 

Are you thinking about virtual events engagement? If yes, you can look for companies like Cinemetrix Media. They have expertise in producing high-quality professional videos for your business. You can try them to meet your business requirements.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Prime’s enshittified advertising

Prime's gonna add more ads. They brought in ads in January, and people didn't cancel their Prime subscriptions, so Amazon figures that they can make Prime even worse and make more money:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/amazon-prime-video-is-getting-more-ads-next-year/

The cruelty isn't the point. Money is the point. Every ad that Amazon shows you shifts value away from you – your time, your attention – to the company's shareholders.

That's the crux of enshittification. Companies don't enshittify – making their once-useful products monotonically worse – because it amuses them to erode the quality of their offerings. They enshittify them because their products are zero-sum: the things that make them valuable to you (watching videos without ads) make things less valuable to them (because they can't monetize your attention).

This isn't new. The internet has always been dominated by intermediaries – platforms – because there are lots more people who want to use the internet than are capable of building the internet. There's more people who want to write blogs than can make a blogging app. There's more people who want to play and listen to music than can host a music streaming service. There's more people who want to write and read ebooks than want to operate an ebook store or sell an ebooks reader.

Despite all the early internet rhetoric about the glories of disintermediation, intermediaries are good, actually:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/direct-the-problem-of-middlemen/

The problem isn't with intermediaries per se. The problem arises when intermediaries grow so powerful that they usurp the relationship between the parties they connect. The problem with Uber isn't the use of mobile phones to tell taxis that you're standing on a street somewhere and would like a cab, please. The problem is rampant worker misclassification, regulatory arbitrage, starvation wages, and price-gouging:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/29/geometry-hates-uber/#toronto-the-gullible

There's no problem with publishers, distributors, retailers, printers, and all the other parts of the bookselling ecosystem. While there are a few, rare authors who are capable of performing all of these functions – basically gnawing their books out of whole logs with their teeth – most writers can't, and even the ones who can, don't want to:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#intermediation

When early internet boosters spoke of disintermediation, what they mostly meant was that it would be harder for intermediaries to capture those relationships – between sellers and buyers, creators and audiences, workers and customers. As Rebecca Giblin and I wrote in our 2022 book Chokepoint Capitalism, intermediaries in every sector rely on chokepoints, narrows where they can erect tollbooths:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

When chokepoints exist, they multiply up and down the supply chain. In the golden age of physical, recorded music, you had several chokepoints that reinforced one another. Limited radio airwaves gave radio stations power over record labels, who had to secretly, illegally bid for prime airspace ("payola"). Retail consolidation – the growth of big record chains – drove consolidation in the distributors who sold to the chains, and the more concentrated distributors became, the more they could squeeze retailers, which drove even more consolidation in record stores. The bigger a label was, the more power it had to shove back against the muscle of the stores and the distributors (and the pressing plants, etc). Consolidation in labels also drove consolidation in talent agencies, whose large client rosters gave them power to resist the squeeze from the labels. Consolidation in venues drives consolidation in ticketing and promotion – and vice-versa.

But there's two parties to this supply chain who can't consolidate: musicians and their fans. With limits on "sectoral bargaining" (where unions can represent workers against all the companies in a sector), musicians' unions were limited in their power against key parts of the supply chain, so the creative workers who made the music were easy pickings for labels, talent reps, promoters, ticketers, venues, retailers, etc. Music fans are diffused and dispersed, and organized fan clubs were usually run by the labels, who weren't about to allow those clubs to be used against the labels.

This is a perfect case-study in the problems of powerful intermediaries, who move from facilitator to parasite, paying workers less while degrading their products, and then charge customers more for those enshittified products.

The excitement about "disintermediation" wasn't so much about eliminating intermediaries as it was about disciplining them. If there were lots of ways to market a product or service, sell it, collect payment for it, and deliver it, then the natural inclination of intermediaries to turn predator would be curbed by the difficulty of corralling their prey into chokepoints.

Now that we're a quarter century on from the Napster Wars, we can see how that worked out. Decades of failure to enforce antitrust law allowed a few companies to effectively capture the internet, buying out rivals who were willing to sell, and bankrupting those who wouldn't with illegal tactics like predatory pricing (think of Uber losing $31 billion by subsidizing $0.41 out of every dollar they charged for taxi rides for more than a decade).

The market power that platforms gained through consolidation translated into political power. When a few companies dominate a sector, they're able to come to agreement on common strategies for dealing with their regulators, and they've got plenty of excess profits to spend on those strategies. First and foremost, platforms used their power to get more power, lobbying for even less antitrust enforcement. Additionally, platforms mobilized gigantic sums to secure the right to screw customers (for example, by making binding arbitration clauses in terms of service enforceable) and workers (think of the $225m Uber and Lyft spent on California's Prop 22, which formalized their worker misclassification swindle).

So big platforms were able to insulate themselves from the risk of competition ("five giant websites, filled with screenshots of the other four" – Tom Eastman), and from regulation. They were also able to expand and mobilize IP law to prevent anyone from breaking their chokepoints or undoing the abuses that these enabled. This is a good place to get specific about how Prime Video works.

There's two ways to get Prime videos: over an app, or in your browser. Both of these streams are encrypted, and that's really important here, because of a law – Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act – which makes it really illegal to break this kind of encryption (commonly called "Digital Rights Management" or "DRM"). Practically speaking, that means that if a company encrypts its videos, no one is allowed to do anything to those videos, even things that are legal, without the company's permission, because doing all those legal things requires breaking the DRM, and breaking the DRM is a felony (five years in prison, $500k fine, for a first offense).

Copyright law actually gives subscribers to services like Prime a lot of rights, and it empowers businesses that offer tools to exercise those rights. Back in 1976, Sony rolled out the Betamax, the first major home video recorder. After an eight-year court battle, the Supreme Court weighed in on VCRs and ruled that it was legal for all of us to record videos at home, both to watch them later, and to build a library of our favorite shows. They also ruled that it was legal for Sony – and by that time, every other electronics company – to make VHS systems, even if those systems could be used in ways that violated copyright because they were "capable of sustaining a substantial non-infringing use" (letting you tape shows off your TV).

Now, this was more than a decade before the DMCA – and its prohibition on breaking DRM – passed, but even after the DMCA came into effect, there was a lot of media that didn't have DRM, so a new generation of tech companies were able to make tools that were "capable of sustaining a substantial non-infringing use" and that didn't have to break any DRM to do it.

Think of the Ipod and Itunes, which, together, were sold as a way to rip CDs (which weren't encrypted), and play them back from both your desktop computer and a wildly successful pocket-sized portable device. Itunes even let you stream from one computer to another. The record industry hated this, but they couldn't do anything about it, thanks to the Supreme Court's Betamax ruling.

Indeed, they eventually swallowed their bile and started selling their products through the Itunes Music Store. These tracks had DRM and were thus permanently locked to Apple's ecosystem, and Apple immediately used that power to squeeze the labels, who decided they didn't like DRM after all, and licensed all those same tracks to Amazon's DRM-free MP3 store, whose slogan was "DRM: Don't Restrict Me":

https://memex.craphound.com/2008/02/01/amazons-anti-drm-tee/

Apple played a funny double role here. In marketing Itunes/Ipods ("Rip, Mix, Burn"), they were the world's biggest cheerleaders for all the things you were allowed to do with copyrighted works, even when the copyright holder objected. But with the Itunes Music Store and its mandatory DRM, the company was also one of the world's biggest cheerleaders for wrapping copyrighted works in a thin skin of IP that would allow copyright holders to shut down products like the Ipod and Itunes.

Microsoft, predictably enough, focused on the "lock everything to our platform" strategy. Then-CEO Steve Ballmer went on record calling every Ipod owner a "thief" and arguing that every record company should wrap music in Microsoft's Zune DRM, which would allow them to restrict anything they didn't like, even if copyright allowed it (and would also give Microsoft the same abusive leverage over labels that they famously exercised over Windows software companies):

https://web.archive.org/web/20050113051129/http://management.silicon.com/itpro/0,39024675,39124642,00.htm

In the end, Amazon's approach won. Apple dropped DRM, and Microsoft retired the Zune and shut down its DRM servers, screwing anyone who'd ever bought a Zune track by rendering that music permanently unplayable.

Around the same time as all this was going on, another company was making history by making uses of copyrighted works that the law allowed, but which the copyright holders hated. That company was Tivo, who products did for personal video recorders (PVRs) what Apple's Ipod did for digital portable music players. With a Tivo, you could record any show over cable (which was too expensive and complicated to encrypt) and terrestrial broadcast (which is illegal to encrypt, since those are the public's airwaves, on loan to the TV stations).

That meant that you could record any show, and keep it forever. What's more, you could very easily skip through ads (and rival players quickly emerged that did automatic ad-skipping). All of this was legal, but of course the cable companies and broadcasters hated it. Like Ballmer, TV execs called Tivo owners "thieves."

But Tivo didn't usher in the ad-supported TV apocalypse that furious, spittle-flecked industry reps insisted it would. Rather, it disciplined the TV and cable operators. Tivo owners actually sought out ads that were funny and well-made enough to go viral. Meanwhile, every time the industry decided to increase the amount of advertising in a show, they also increased the likelihood that their viewers would seek out a Tivo, or worse, one of those auto-ad-skipping PVRs.

Given all the stink that TV execs raised over PVRs, you'd think that these represented a novel threat. But in fact, the TV industry's appetite for ads had been disciplined by viewers' access to new technology since 1956, when the first TV remotes appeared on the market (executives declared that anyone who changed the channel during an ad-break was a thief). Then came the mute button. Then the wireless remote. Meanwhile, a common VCR use-case – raised in the Supreme Court case – was fast-forwarding ads.

At each stage, TV adapted. Ads in TV shows represented a kind of offer: "Will you watch this many of these ads in return for a free TV show?" And the remote, the mute button, the wireless remote, the VCR, the PVR, and the ad-skipping PVR all represented a counter-offer. As economists would put it, the ability of viewers to make these counteroffers "shifted the equilibrium." If viewers had no defensive technology, they might tolerate more ads, but once they were able to enforce their preferences with technology, the industry couldn't enshittify its product to the liminal cusp of "so many ads that the viewer is right on the brink of turning off the TV (but not quite)."

This is the same equilibrium-shifting dynamic that we see on the open web, where more than 50% of users have installed an ad-blocker. The industry says, "Will you allow this many 'sign up to our mailing list' interrupters, pop ups, pop unders, autoplaying videos and other stuff that users hate but shareholders benefit from" and the ad-blocker makes a counteroffer: "How about 'nah?'":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

TV remotes, PVRs and ad-blockers are all examples of "adversarial interoperability" – a new product that plugs into an existing one, extending or modifying its functions without permission from (or even over the objections of) the original manufacturer:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Adversarial interop creates a powerful disciplining force on platform owners. Once a user grows so frustrated with a product's enshittification that they research, seek out, acquire and learn to use an adversarial interop tool, it's really game over. The printer owner who figures out where to get third-party ink is gone forever. Every time a company like HP raises its prices, they have to account for the number of customers who will finally figure out how to use generic ink and never, ever send another cent to HP.

This is where DMCA 1201 comes into play. Once a product is skinned with DRM, its manufacturers gain the right to prevent you from doing legal things, and can use the public's courts and law-enforcement apparatus to punish you for trying. Take HP: as soon as they started adding DRM to their cartridges, they gained the legal power to shut down companies that cloned, refilled or remanufactured their cartridges, and started raising the price of ink – which today sits at more than $10,000/gallon:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/30/life-finds-a-way/#ink-stained-wretches

Using third party ink in your printer isn't illegal (it's your printer, right?). But making third party ink for your printer becomes illegal once you have to break DRM to do so, and so HP gets to transform tinted water into literally the most expensive fluid on Earth. The ink you use to print your kid's homework costs more than vintage Veuve Cliquot or sperm from a Kentucky Derby-winning thoroughbred.

Adversarial interoperability is a powerful tool for shifting the equilibrium between producers, intermediaries and buyers. DRM is an even more powerful way of wrenching that equilibrium back towards the intermediary, reducing the share that buyers and sellers are able to eke out of the transaction.

Prime Video, of course, is delivered via an app, which means it has DRM. That means that subscribers don't get to exercise the rights afforded to them by copyright – only the rights that Amazon permits them to have. There's no Tivo for Prime, because it would have to break the DRM to record the shows you stream from Prime. That allows Prime to pull all kinds of shady shit. For example, every year around this time, Amazon pulls popular Christmas movies from its free-to-watch tier and moves them into pay-per-view, only restoring them in the spring:

https://www.reddit.com/r/vudu/comments/1bpzanx/looks_like_amazon_removed_the_free_titles_from/

And of course, Prime sticks ads in its videos. You can't skip these ads – not because it's technically challenging to make a 30-second advance button for a video stream, and doing so wouldn't violate anyone's copyright – but because Amazon doesn't permit you to do so, and the fact that the video is wrapped in DRM makes it a felony to even try.

This means that Amazon gets to seek a different equilibrium than TV companies have had to accept since 1956 and the invention of the TV remote. Amazon doesn't have to limit the quantity, volume, and invasiveness of its ads to "less the amount that would drive our subscribers to install and use an ad-skipping plugin." Instead, they can shoot for the much more lucrative equilibrium of "so obnoxious that the viewer is almost ready to cancel their subscription (but not quite)."

That's pretty much exactly how Kelly Day, the Amazon exec in charge of Prime Video, put it to the Financial Times: they're increasing the number of ads because "we haven’t really seen a groundswell of people churning out or cancelling":

https://www.ft.com/content/f8112991-820c-4e09-bcf4-23b5e0f190a5

At this point, attentive readers might be asking themselves, "Doesn't Amazon have to worry about Prime viewers who watch in their browsers?" After all browsers are built on open standards, and anyone can make one, so there should be browsers that can auto-skip Prime ads, right?

Wrong, alas. Back in 2017, the W3C – the organization that makes the most important browser standards – caved to pressure from the entertainment industry and the largest browser companies and created "Encrypted Media Extensions" (EME), a "standard" for video DRM that blocks all adversarial interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

This had the almost immediate effect of making it impossible to create an independent browser without licensing proprietary tech from Google – now a convicted monopolist! – who won't give you a license if you implement recording, ad-skipping, or any other legal (but dispreferred) feature:

https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/the-end-of-indie-web-browsers/

This means that for Amazon, there's no way to shift value away from the platform to you. The company has locked you in, and has locked out anyone who might offer you a better deal. Companies that know you are technologically defenseless are endlessly inventive in finding ways to make things worse for you to make things better for them. Take Youtube, another DRM-video-serving platform that has jacked up the number of ads you have to sit through in order to watch a video – even as they slash payments to performers. They've got a new move: they're gonna start showing you ads while your video is paused:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/09/20/youtube-pause-ads-rollout/75306204007/

That is the kind of fuckery you only come up with when your victory condition is "a service that's almost so bad our customers quit (but not quite)."

In Amazon's case, the math is even worse. After all, Youtube may have near-total market dominance over a certain segment of the video market, but Prime Video is bundled with Prime Delivery, which the vast majority of US households subscribe to. You have to give up a lot to cancel your Prime subscription – especially since Amazon's predatory pricing devastated the rest of the retail sector:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

Amazon's founding principle was "customer obsession." Ex-Amazoners tell me that this was more than an empty platitude: arguments over product design were won or lost based on whether they could satisfy the "customer obsession" litmus test. Now, everyone falls short of their ideals, but sticking to your ideals isn't merely a matter of internal discipline, of willpower. Living up to your ideals is a matter of external discipline, too. When Amazon no longer had to contend with competitors or regulators, when it was able to use DRM to control its customers and use the law to prevent them from using its products in legal ways, it lost those external sources of discipline.

Amazon suppliers have long complained of the company's high-handed treatment of the vendors who supplied it with goods. Its workers have complained bitterly and loudly about the dangerous and oppressive conditions in its warehouses and delivery vans. But Amazon's customers have consistently given Amazon high marks on quality and trustworthiness.

The reason Amazon treated its workers and suppliers badly and its customers well wasn't that it liked customers and hated workers and suppliers. Amazon was engaged in a cold-blooded calculus: it understood that treating customers well would give it control over those customers, and that this would translate market power to retain suppliers even as it ripped them off and screwed them over.

But now, Amazon has clearly concluded that it no longer needs to keep customers happy in order to retain them. Instead, it's shooting for "keeping customers so angry that they're almost ready to take their business elsewhere (but not quite)." You see this in the steady decline of Amazon product search, which preferences the products that pay the biggest bribes for search placement over the best matches:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

And you see it in the steady enshittification of Prime Video. Amazon's character never changed. The company always had a predatory side. But now that monopoly and IP law have insulated it from consequences for its actions, there's no longer any reason to keep the predator in check.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/03/mother-may-i/#minmax

[frankendykes-monster]

There is a popular quote attributed to both Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek arguing that it is “easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” It is an odd thought to process while watching Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, a schlocky horror film that reimagines A. A. Milne’s loveable anthropomorphic teddy bear as a hack-and-slash movie monster. Still, it’s something that bubbles through the film’s very existence. Blood and Honey can be understood in a couple of different contexts. Most obviously, it is a transgressive horror film that uses the iconography of beloved childhood figures in a grotesque and unsettling way as a shortcut to cheap thrills. There has been a recent spate of these movies, including The Banana Splits Movie and The Mean One. Later this year, Five Nights at Freddy’s will adapt the beloved video game, riffing on the same basic idea of cute childish things turned violent. However, Blood and Honey stands apart from these contemporaries. It isn’t a pastiche like Five Nights at Freddy’s, it isn’t a licensed production like The Banana Splits Movie, and it’s not an unauthorized parody like The Mean One. It is an adaptation of A. A. Milne’s beloved children’s classic, made possible by the fact that Winnie the Pooh has entered the public domain. Nobody has to pay to use the character, and no authority has the power to veto what can be done with him. Copyright law is an interesting thing. The Copyright Act of 1790 enshrined legal protection of an author’s right to their work for “the term of fourteen years from the recording the title thereof in the clerk’s office.” However, that period of protection would be expanded over the ensuing centuries. With the Copyright Term Extension Act, arriving in 1998, that protection was extended to the life of the author plus another seven decades. Of course, the reality is that copyright doesn’t always protect the artists. It often exists to enrich corporate entities. Much of the most lucrative intellectual property on the planet is controlled by faceless companies that ruthlessly exploit the artistry of their employees and contractors. Comic book movies are a billion-dollar industry, but key creative figures have to fundraise to pay medical bills, like Bill Mantlo. Creators like Jack Kirby or Bill Finger never got to enjoy the spoils of their labor.

Indeed, these extensions to the period of copyright were largely driven by companies holding these intellectual property rights. The Copyright Term Extension Act was known in some circles as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act,” reflecting Disney’s proactive lobbying in favor of the extension. Incidentally, Disney paid $350 million to buy Winnie the Pooh from the A. A. Milne estate in March 2001. It is ruthless capitalism, rooted in these companies’ desires to control the public imagination. The Copyright Term Extension Act ensured that no media entered the public domain between 1998 and 2019. As much as writers like Grant Morrison might argue that superheroes are the modern equivalent to the classic Greek gods, this ignores the fact that mythology is a public resource. The classic myths were not owned by large corporations that could use the threat of legal action to pull Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker from the Toronto International Film Festival after a single screening. This makes Blood and Honey a pointed act of transgression. The film comes from writer and director Rhys Frake-Waterfield, best known as a producer of low-rent schlock like Dinosaur Hotel and Dragon Fury. Realizing that A. A. Milne’s beloved childhood fable was entering the public domain, Frake-Waterfield sensed an opportunity. With a budget of under $100,000, he set out to make a quick cash-in slasher movie. Of course, Frake-Waterfield could only draw from elements included in the earliest stories. He had to avoid the iconic material added to the mythos in the years that followed. “Only the 1926 version is in the public domain, so those were the only elements I could incorporate,” Frake-Waterfield admitted. “Other parts like Poohsticks, and Tigger, and Pooh’s red shirt — those aren’t elements I can use at the moment because they’re the copyright of Disney and that would get me in a lot of trouble.” Blood and Honey is a bad movie. It is lazy, uninspired, and boring. It has no sense of character, theme, or basic structure. It’s a lazily reskinned version of Halloween or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre from a filmmaker who spent a significant portion of the press tour passive-aggressively complaining about how Halloween Ends took “itself too seriously.” There is nothing of any merit here, nothing to hold the audience’s interest. The film’s 84-minute runtime lasts several lifetimes. That said, there is a germ of an interesting idea in the central concept, which has an adult Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) returning to the childhood fantasy that he abandoned to go to college. He discovers that his childhood did not take well to this abandonment. Winnie the Pooh (Craig David Dowsett), now a feral and mute beast, chains Christopher up and tortures him. He whips the adult with Eeyore’s tail. However, Winnie the Pooh cannot kill Christopher. He must possess him.

It is too much to suggest that this plot is mirrored in the story of the film’s actual protagonist and decoy final girl, Maria (Maria Taylor). Maria is taking a trip into the country with her girlfriends, recovering from a traumatic experience with a male stalker (Chris Cordell). When Maria’s friend Lara (Natasha Tosini) spots Pooh lurking around the Airbnb, she assumes that he must be Maria’s stalker. Pooh’s psychopathic sidekick, Piglet, is also played by Cordell, to underscore this connection. At times, Blood and Honey seems like it might be a clever and subversive commentary on the way in which so much modern pop culture infantilizes its audience. Christopher has tried to grow up and leave his childhood behind, even planning to marry his fiancée Mary (Paula Coiz), but his childhood won’t leave him behind. Pooh needs Christopher, his validation and his love. However, that relationship is not as innocent as it appears framed through childhood memory. Many modern adults would empathize with this idea, as their childhood nostalgia is weaponized against them by streaming services and studios. Even if one lives in a remote cabin in the woods, franchises like Star Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, He-Man, and X-Men: The Animated Series are inescapable. Entertainment that was once aimed at children is now aimed at the adults those children became. There is no indication that these corporations are ever going to stop. Of course, this gives Blood and Honey too much credit, suggesting that it can be read as a subversive commentary on the role that this sort of intellectual property plays in cultural stagnation. In reality, Blood and Honey is an illustration of just how pervasive this model of capitalism can be. Frake-Waterfield isn’t using Pooh to make a point about the cynical exploitation of these cultural touchstones. He is using it as a cynical exploitation of these cultural touchstones. Blood and Honey grossed nearly $5 million at the global box office, and one suspects that it performed very well on home media and streaming. There is already a sequel in the works with “five times the budget.” More than that, Frake-Waterfield has made a conscious effort to expand the brand into a shared universe built around similar properties. He will direct Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare and will produce Bambi: The Reckoning, which was sold to international distributors at Cannes this year. Frake-Waterfield doesn’t just have his eye on these sequels and spin-offs. He dreams of a bigger childhood horror shared universe. “The idea is that we’re going to try and imagine they’re all in the same world, so we can have crossovers,” he boasted. “People have been messaging saying they really want to see Bambi versus Pooh.” It’s incredibly ruthless and cynical. It is a transparent attempt to build a massive multimedia franchise from elements that the production team don’t have to pay for.

In theory, the liberation of these iconic characters from copyright should herald encourage creativity and ingenuity. It should allow for more projects like The People’s Joker or Apocalypse Pooh. There are certainly artists engaged in that sort of work. It also provides the opportunity for commentary and engagement with the modern media landscape. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is already salivating at the satirical potential of Mickey Mouse’s entry into the public domain. Blood and Honey suggests an alternative to these creative uses of works leaving corporate purview. Blood and Honey is just as cynical and ruthless in its exploitation of this intellectual property as Disney had been. Frake-Waterfield is clearly aspiring to exploit these properties in exactly the same way that Disney did, hoping to create a scale model of their production machine. It is a trickle-down shared universe, a reheat of a familiar meal constructed from pre-digested ingredients. For all the moral handwringing about how the movie “ruined people’s childhoods,” this is the real horror of Blood and Honey. It suggests the limits of creative imagination, an inability to conceive of an alternative to the model of intellectual property management that defines so much contemporary pop culture. The roots of this mode of thinking run so deep that it seems impossible to imagine any alternative. The public domain doesn’t free this intellectual property from endless exploitation, it just means somebody else gets to take a turn. If the rights to Winnie the Pooh are entering the public domain, why wouldn’t somebody use the brand recognition to make a quick and easy buck? After all, the business logic behind Blood and Honey is the same logic behind something like The Little Mermaid or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. People recognize the brand, and that will make it easier to sell. Even this seemingly subversive and rebellious act is just a cheaper, more cynical, and less competent iteration of the larger processes that drive modern media. All things considered, the cynicism of Blood and Honey is a small price to pay for the possibility of more work like The People’s Joker. More than that, if it helps to undermine or shatter the brand loyalty that these corporations have cultivated among generations of movie-goers, it may serve some purpose. Still, it’s disheartening to watch Blood and Honey, realizing that these modes of exploitation are so deeply ingrained in pop culture that they perpetuate even in the public domain. Even as the end of copyright becomes a reality, the end of this intellectual property churn remains beyond imagination. Oh bother.

[dangerous-ladies]

Help the Dangerous Ladies Keep Creating!

Hello, it’s been a while! Unfortunately, we’re coming back under less than ideal circumstances.  Our Etsy shop, our main source of income, has been recently suspended due to copyright claims. At the behest of our supporters, we have started a Gofundme to help keep the lights on.

Help Us Out at our GoFundMe

If you don’t know us, we're a small woman owned and operated, LGBT-friendly costuming company that has been cosplaying together for a decade and providing resin kits, patterns, textiles and other accessories to the community since 2013. We’re based in Toronto, Canada.

To date, we have shipped more than 26,000 kits, prints, files and other resources for cosplayers. This business is our livelihood and came to fruition through hard work and effort. Everything we make is from scratch, with our own hands and our own machines, in small quantities, to order. Our digital files are all made in-house, individually, using no official assets. We are not a factory mass-producing wholesale goods, nor do we dropship other people's products. We are a committed little business that has loved being on Etsy, and truly believe we are the very artists that Etsy should want to platform –– our goods are handmade, unique, and often the only resource of their kind! We work hard for our high ratings, but agents operating on behalf of certain companies occasionally send take-downs, and then do not reply to us when we try to work it out with them. It's complicated, but the reality is that we're creating projects in the realm of transformative work and are by no means taking away profit from the creators of these properties, as our cosplay kits are one-of-a-kind creations with no official analogue. We also feel very strongly that cosplay is an incredible form of free advertising for companies producing video games, anime, tv shows and movies. Cosplayers put in a tremendous amount of labour, time and money to make their costumes, which they wear and display all over conventions, the internet and social media. We know from experience that companies enjoy and engage with the fruits of this labour; the very companies that inspire us to create kits sometimes hire us (and other cosplayers) themselves to represent their media after having seen our store! We've had the distinct pleasure of working for media companies large and small, and they know what we make and allow us to keep the rights to our files and associated assets. These companies also regularly post on social media with cosplayers using our work.  However, Etsy does not know who or what companies choose to allow the sale of fan art and goods. To them, a report is a report, even if it is erroneous or mistaken. This has been a crushing blow to us as a small business. We're a very month-to-month, low-profit business after we pay the bills and our team. Currently, Dangerous Ladies employs eight staff members and operates from a rented studio space. Both our staff and our space are an integral part of our business and allow us to be able to operate at our current capacity, providing cosplay resources to creators all around the world.  Without support, we will have to scale back dramatically, if not close entirely. While we work to appeal with Etsy, we realize that there is a chance we may not see our platform flourish there again, so we are working diligently to bring you our new website, and welcome you to visit our Storenvy in the meantime. We started this Gofundme  Although orders are very important to us right now, we understand that some of you may not have the need to order a kit, print, or fabric at the moment, but still wish to support us through this trying time. For this, we want to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Sincerely, the Dangerous Ladies Jenn, Christine, Shazz, Aubree, Nicole, Gabi, Syd, and Jules <3 Can I see more of what you do? Of course! While our Etsy is down, you can visit us on Storenvy or subscribe to our newsletter. You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram!

[heavenboy09]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 TO YOU

THE MOST LEGENDARY & ICONIC CANDIAN 🇨🇦 ACTOR & MUSICIAN 🎶 IN CINEMA 🎥 & ENTERTAINMENT OF THE WHOLE WORLD 🌎 IN HISTORY

Reeves was born in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 2, 1964, the son of Patricia (née Taylor), a costume designer and performer, and Samuel Nowlin Reeves Jr. His mother is English, originating from Essex. His American father is from Hawaii, and is of Native Hawaiian, Chinese, English, and Portuguese descent. Reeves' paternal grandmother is of Hawaiian and Chinese descent. His mother was working in Beirut when she met his father, who abandoned his wife and family when Reeves was three years old. Reeves last met his father on the Hawaiian island of Kauai when he was 13.

He is a Canadian actor and musician. He is the recipient of numerous accolades in a career on screen spanning four decades. In 2020, The New York Times ranked him as the fourth-greatest actor of the 21st century, and in 2022 Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Reeves is known for his leading roles in action films, his amiable public image, and his philanthropic efforts.

Born in Beirut and raised in Toronto, he made his acting debut in the Canadian television series Hangin' In (1984), before making his feature-film debut in Youngblood (1986). Reeves had his breakthrough role in the science-fiction comedy Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), and he reprised his role in the sequel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991). He gained praise for playing a hustler in the independent drama My Own Private Idaho (1991) and established himself as an action hero with leading roles in Point Break (1991) and Speed (1994). Following several box-office disappointments, Reeves's performance in the horror film The Devil's Advocate (1997) was well received. Greater stardom came with his role as Neo in The Matrix (1999); Reeves became the highest paid actor for a single production for reprising the role in its sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions (both 2003).

He played John Constantine in Constantine (2005) and starred in the romantic drama The Lake House (2006), the science fiction thriller The Day the Earth Stood Still and the crime thriller Street Kings (both 2008). He made his feature-film directorial debut with Man of Tai Chi (2013). Following another commercially down period, Reeves made a career comeback by playing the titular assassin in the action John Wick film series (2014–present). He voiced Duke Caboom in Toy Story 4 (2019) and Johnny Silverhand in the video game Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) as well as its expansion. He also reprised his roles of Ted in Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) and Neo in The Matrix: Resurrections (2021). Reeves reunited and toured with his band Dogstar in support of their first album in over two decades, Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees (2023).

In addition to his career as an actor and musician, Reeves is the co-writer and creator of the BRZRKR franchise, which started with the original comic book (2021–2023) and since expanded to include numerous spin-offs, including the BRZRKR spin-off The Book of Elsewhere with China Miéville. An avid motorcyclist, Reeves is the co-founder of the custom manufacturer ARCH Motorcycle, and is a co-founder of the production company Company Films with his associate Stephen Hamel.

PLEASE WISH THIS LEGENDARY ICONIC CANADIAN ACTOR & MUSICIAN 🇨🇦🎶

IN ENTERTAINMENT IN ALL OF CINEMA 🎥

YOU KNOW HIM

YOU LOVE HIS MOVIES 🎥 YOU GREW TO ALL OF HIS GREATEST MOVIES 🎥

& THE LADIES CANT HELP BUT FALL IN LOVE WITH HIM.

THE ONE

& ONLY

MR. KEANU CHARLES REEVES 👨🏻 AKA NEO , THE ONE OF WARNER BROS PICTURES, THE MATRIX 🟢 & LIONSGATE PICTURES, JOHN WICK👨🏻 & PARAMOUNT PICTURES , SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG ⚫🦔 OF SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 🔵🦔

HAPPY 60TH BIRTHDAY 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 TO YOU MR. REEVES & HERE'S TO MANY MORE YEARS TO COME #KeanuReeves #BillandTed #Speed #TheMatrixTrilogy #JohnWick #SonicTheHedgeHog #Ted #Neo #JohnWick #ShadowTheHedghog

[digiboostmedia]

Vaughan's Growth Catalyst: Elevate Your Business with Digital Marketing Mastery

Vaughan, a vibrant city located just north of Toronto, is known for its picturesque landscapes, welcoming community, and thriving business opportunities. With a rapidly growing economy and diverse industries, Vaughan has become a hotbed for entrepreneurs and businesses looking to make their mark in the digital age. Providers like Digital Boost Media provide internet marketing services in Vaughan, helping local businesses to establish and strengthen their online presence, ensuring they can effectively reach their target audience and thrive in the dynamic digital marketplace.

The Shift towards Digital Marketing in the Modern Business Landscape

The business landscape has evolved significantly recently, with a notable shift towards digital marketing strategies. In today's fast-paced and technology-driven world, businesses in Vaughan need to embrace this change to stay ahead of the competition.

Digital marketing encompasses various online tactics such as search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, email marketing, content creation, and more. These strategies are designed to reach a wider audience and drive targeted traffic to your website or online store.

One of the key advantages of digital marketing is its ability to provide measurable results. Unlike traditional forms of advertising, you can track the performance of your campaigns in real time and make data-driven decisions to optimize your efforts.

Having a solid online presence is crucial for businesses in Vaughan. With more consumers relying on the internet for their purchasing decisions, it's essential that your brand is easily discoverable and stands out from the competition.

Implementing an effective digital marketing strategy requires careful planning and execution. It starts with understanding your target audience and identifying which platforms they frequent most often. From there, you can tailor your messaging and create compelling content that resonates with them.

Collaborating with a reputable digital marketing company in Vaughan can be highly beneficial. They have the expertise and resources to develop customized strategies aligning with your business goals.

Understanding the Basics of Digital Marketing and its Key Components

The marketing world has undergone a seismic shift in recent years, with the rise of digital marketing taking centre stage. Digital marketing encompasses various strategies and tactics to promote products and services through online channels. At its core, it revolves around creating compelling content that engages and resonates with your target audience. This can take various forms, including blogs, social media posts, videos, and email campaigns.

One key component of digital marketing is search engine optimization (SEO), which involves optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results pages. By incorporating relevant keywords into your website's content and improving its structure, you increase your chances of being found by potential customers searching for similar products or services. Partnering with a top SEO company in Vaughan, such as Digital Boost Media, adds another layer of expertise to this process. Their dedicated SEO strategies and industry insights can elevate your website's visibility, ensuring it stands out prominently in search engine rankings and attracts the right audience for your business.

Another important aspect is social media marketing, where businesses leverage platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn to connect with their audience more personally. It allows you to interact directly with customers through comments, likes/shares, and direct messages while building brand awareness and loyalty.

Paid advertising is also an integral part of digital marketing. Platforms like Google Ads or Facebook Ads enable businesses to reach their target audience directly through targeted ads based on demographics, interests, or behaviour patterns.

Email marketing remains an effective tool for nurturing leads and retaining existing customers. Building an email list gives you direct access to individuals who have shown interest in your business. Sending personalized emails with valuable content helps build trust and increases the likelihood of conversion.

Understanding these key components will help you navigate the vast realm of digital marketing effectively. By employing a holistic approach tailored specifically to your business goals and target audience in Vaughan's market context, you can elevate your brand presence online, differentiate yourself from competitors and ultimately drive growth.

Importance of a Strong Online Presence for Businesses in Vaughan

In today's digital age, having a solid online presence is crucial for businesses in Vaughan. Companies must establish themselves online, with most consumers turning to the internet to research and purchase products or services.

One of the main benefits of a solid online presence is increased visibility. When your business has a well-optimized website and active social media profiles, you are more likely to appear in search engine results and be discovered by potential customers.

A solid online presence also builds credibility and trust with your target audience. A professional website that showcases your products or services effectively can instil confidence in prospective customers.

An online presence provides opportunities for businesses in Vaughan to differentiate themselves from competitors. By implementing various digital marketing strategies, such as content marketing or email campaigns tailored specifically for your target market, you can showcase what sets your business apart from others in the industry.

An effective digital marketing strategy helps generate leads and nurtures relationships with existing customers. By utilizing tools such as email automation or personalized retargeting ads on social media platforms, you can stay top-of-mind with current customers while encouraging repeat business.

So don't wait any longer - embrace digital marketing mastery now!

Tips for Implementing a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy in Your Own Business

1. Set Clear Goals: Defining your goals is essential before jumping into any digital marketing activities.

2. Know Your Target Audience: Understanding your target audience is crucial for effective digital marketing.

3. Create High-Quality Content: Content is king in digital marketing. Ensure that the content you produce is valuable, informative, and engaging.

4. Optimize for Search Engines: Implement search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to improve your website's visibility on search engines like Google.

5. Leverage Social Media Platforms: Utilize social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twi, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., based on where your target audience spends their time online.

6. Utilize Email Marketing: Use email marketing campaigns by building an email list of interested customers through opt-ins on websites or social media channels.

7. Measure Success with Analytics: Implement tracking tools like Google Analytics to measure the success of your digital marketing efforts.

8. Stay Updated with Industry Trends: Digital marketing trends constantly evolve. Stay up-to-date with industry news, blogs and podcasts and attend webinars/conferences.

From understanding the basics of digital marketing to implementing a comprehensive strategy tailored to your goals, numerous ways exist to elevate your business in Vaughan. Whether you work with an experienced digital marketing agency in Vaughan or develop an in-house team, investing in your online presence is crucial.

Remember that building a solid online presence takes time and effort. Be patient and consistent with your efforts, continuously monitor results, adapt strategies as needed, and stay up-to-date with evolving trends in digital marketing.

Elevate your business today by embarking on this exciting journey towards success!

[thisislizheather]

Museum of Failure in NYC

“Museum of Failure is a collection of failed products and services from around the world. The majority of all innovation projects fail and the museum showcases these failures to provide visitors a fascinating learning experience. Innovation and progress require an acceptance of failure. The museum aims to stimulate productive discussion about failure and inspire us to take meaningful risks.”

God, I love a fun museum. There’s absolutely nothing better. I went to the Museum of Failure when it opened a few weeks ago in Brooklyn and I can’t recommend it enough. The space it’s displayed in is a bit of a failure in itself (on purpose maybe?), but once you get past that it’s a great way to spend an hour. Some highlights below!

As soon as you enter, there’s the Share Your Failure wall that visitors can contribute to. Best ones I read: not getting divorced, not kissing him, not wearing sunscreen when I was young.

Above Photo: Share Your Failure wall at the Museum of Failure, NYC

Above Photo: If this doesn’t remind you of the Toronto Science Center in the mid 90s, I don’t know what to tell you

Okay, Orbitz was not actually a good drink, but it completely paved the way for bubble tea to take off.

Above Photo: Diet candy AYDS, 1937-1980s

“Why take diet pills when you can enjoy AYDS?" HOW WAS THIS REAL? And how on earth was it successful for decades?? This appetite-suppressant candy was successful with the help of Hollywood celebrities and its popularity peaked in the 1970s. Obviously when the AIDS epidemic emerged in the 1980s the weight-loss product was doomed.

Above Photo: Atari ET Game & Console, 1982-1983

This is basically known as the worst video game of all time and Atari reported a $536 million loss in 1983 because of it. There’s a great documentary about it called Atari: Game Over about the urban legend that unsold copies were buried.

Above Photo: Low blow, museum. Low blow.

Is it funny that there’s a Titanic reference? Absolutely. Horrid, but funny.

Above Photo: Pinky Gloves, 2021

Oh no, these came out in 2021. A male trio of German inventors created gloves to wear when taking out tampons so that women wouldn’t get blood on their hands and have a “discrete way to dispose of the used product.” WOW.

Above Photo: Little Miss No Name, 1965

Firstly, I apologize for introducing this image into your subconscious. I really am. The brand Hasbro designed this unusual doll to be an alternative to the hugely popular Barbie. “In keeping with the climate of the mid-sixties, they wanted to teach little girls compassion and the realities of life for homeless people.”

Above Photo: Trump SECTION at the Museum of Failure, NYC

There’s a whole Trump wing in the museum, which is just *chef’s kiss*.

Above Photo: Spray On Condom, 2006-2008

This German product was supposed to be the solution to the problem of condoms being either too small or too big. Its instructions: “Simply insert penis into an apparatus to coat with melted latex and then wait 3 minutes for the latex to dry.” It failed because the idea of inserting one's penis into the apparatus scared men and the three-minute hardening time proved too long to wait.

Above Photo: Shared Girlfriend, 2017

Developed by Chinese company Taqu Ltd., the Shared Girlfriend service rented sex dolls for $45 a day. They were made of high-quality silicon and dolls were ordered with a smartphone app then delivered to your door. “After each rental, the dolls were disinfected, and the more heavily used and damaged parts were replaced.” ICK.  Amazingly, the service was suspended only four days after its launch due to public outrage.

There were so many other incredible pieces on display (grass skis, the hula chair, the Elon Musk wall), you really should make an afternoon of it and see for yourself. I showed a few videos of the exhibit over on my spring ‘23 highlights on Instagram, if you’re interested in seeing even more. Such a fun time. Tickets available over here.

Now I beg you, world: bring back Pepsi Blue.

[videoproductioncomapny]

DVD Duplication for Corporate Training Programs in Toronto - VCM Interactive

DVD duplication continues to be a valuable tool for corporate training programs in Toronto, providing an efficient and cost-effective means of distributing vital information to employees. In a city known for its thriving business community, organizations are constantly seeking ways to streamline their training processes. To know more visit https://www.vcminteractive.com/ or call us at 647.401.1443.

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

Moonlight (2016, Barry Jenkins)

14/11/2023

Moonlight is a 2016 film written and directed by Barry Jenkins, based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney.

The film was positively criticized and won numerous awards, including the Best Film Award from the National Society of Film Critics, the Golden Globe for Best Drama and three Oscars for Best supporting actor, for best non-original screenplay and for best film: it is the first LGBT-themed film to obtain this recognition (after Philadelphia), as well as the first with a cast entirely made up of African Americans, and the second for the highest grossing low (behind The Hurt Locker which won in 2010).

Chiron is an African-American child originally from Liberty City, called "Little" by everyone. He and his mother live together in a Miami neighborhood marked by drugs and violence.

As an adult Chiron becomes a drug dealer in a bad neighborhood of Atlanta and there he tries to live on his own, armed with his faithful revolver.

In 2003, Tarell Alvin McCraney wrote a semi-autobiographical play, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, partly to deal with the death of his AIDS-stricken mother.

After the release of his first film, Medicine for Melancholy in 2008, Barry Jenkins wrote several screenplays, none of which went into production. He and producer Romanski began brainstorming sessions via video chat twice a month about his projects, and shortly thereafter Jenkins began work on the script for McCraney, which he learned about through Borscht's Miami arts collective. After consulting with McCraney, Jenkins wrote the first draft of the film during a month-long stay in Brussels.

Jenkins sought financing for the film throughout 2013, finding success after sharing the script with Plan B Entertainment executives at that year's Telluride Film Festival. Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner became producers of the film, while A24 undertook to finance it and handle worldwide distribution, which also marked the company's first production.

The film had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and subsequently at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, and at the New York Film Festival in October.

The film was chosen as the opening film of the 2016 Rome Film Festival. Its first television appearance took place on 4 March 2018 on Sky Cinema with the title Moonlight - Tre storie di una vita.

On the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film receives 98% of positive professional reviews with an average rating of 9.00 out of 10 based on 384 critics, while on Metacritic it obtains a score of 99 out of 100 based on 53 criticism.

[webringt]

Elevating Your Brand with Toronto Commercial Video Production

When it comes to showcasing your brand, Toronto Commercial Video Production plays a crucial role in communicating your message clearly and engagingly. Video content has become one of the most powerful marketing tools available today, and businesses in Toronto are increasingly relying on high-quality commercial videos to captivate audiences. If you're looking to create compelling promotional material for your products or services, Toronto Product Videography is an excellent choice to bring your vision to life.

Toronto has a thriving video production industry that caters to businesses of all sizes. Whether you're launching a new product or looking to enhance your online presence, professional video production can help you stand out. With experienced videographers and cutting-edge equipment, you can create videos that not only showcase your products but also tell your brand's unique story. By incorporating Toronto Product Videography into your marketing strategy, you can attract potential customers and leave a lasting impression.

The power of commercial video production lies in its ability to evoke emotions, build trust, and convey complex information in an easily digestible format. For instance, when producing videos that highlight a product, it's essential to focus on the features, benefits, and the story behind it. Whether it's a new gadget, fashion line, or service, Toronto Product Videography can be tailored to emphasize what makes your product unique, making it more appealing to your target audience.

One of the key advantages of working with a Toronto Commercial Video Production company is the level of expertise they bring to the table. From pre-production planning to post-production editing, every aspect of video creation is handled with professionalism and attention to detail. Videographers and directors collaborate to ensure that the video aligns with your brand's identity and marketing goals. The result is a polished final product that enhances your brand's visibility and resonates with your audience.

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

Don’t Be Evil

Tonight (November 22), I'll be joined by Vass Bednar at the Toronto Metro Reference Library for a talk about my new novel, The Lost Cause, a preapocalyptic tale of hope in the climate emergency.

My latest Locus Magazine column is "Don't Be Evil," a consideration of the forces that led to the Great Enshittening, the dizzying, rapid transformation of formerly useful services went from indispensable to unusable to actively harmful:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

While some services have fallen harder and/or faster, they're all falling. When a whole cohort of services all turn sour in the same way, at the same time, it's obvious that something is happening systemically.

After all, these companies are still being led by the same people. The leaders who presided over a period in which these companies made good and useful services are also presiding over these services' decay. What factors are leading to a pandemic of rapid-onset enshittification?

Recall that enshittification is a three-stage process: first surpluses are allocated to users until they are locked in. Then they are withdrawn and given to business-customers until they are locked in. Then all the value is harvested for the company's shareholders, leaving just enough residual value in the service to keep both end-users and business-customers glued to the platform.

We can think of each step in that enshittification process as the outcome of an argument. At some product planning meeting, one person will propose doing something to materially worsen the service to the company's advantage, and at the expense of end-users or business-customers.

Think of Youtube's decay. Over the past year, Google has:

Dramatically increased the cost of ad-free Youtube subscriptions;

Dramatically increased the number of ads shown to non-subscribers;

Dramatically decreased the amount of money paid to Youtube creators;

Added aggressive anti-adblock;

Then, this week, Google started adding a five-second blanking interval for non-Chrome users who have adblockers installed:

https://www.404media.co/youtube-says-new-5-second-video-load-delay-is-supposed-to-punish-ad-blockers-not-firefox-users/

These all smack of Jenga blocks that different product managers are removing in pursuit of their "key performance indicators" (KPIs):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

We can think of each of these steps as the outcome of an argument. Someone proposes a Youtube subscription price-hike, and other internal stakeholders object. These objections fall into two categories:

We shouldn't do this because it will make the product worse; and/or

We shouldn't do this because it will reduce the company's earnings.

Lots of googlers sincerely care about product quality. People like doing a good job, and they take pride in making good things. Many have sacrificed something that mattered in the service of making the product better. It's bad enough to miss your kid's school play so you can meet a work deadline – but imagine making that sacrifice and then having the excellent work you put in deliberately degraded.

I have been around Google's orbit since its early days, going to the odd company Christmas party in the early 2000s and giving talks at Google offices in cities all over the world. I've known hundreds of skilled googlers who passionately cared about making the best products they could.

For most of Google's history, those googlers won the argument. But they didn't do so merely by appealing to their colleagues' professional pride in a job well-done. For most of Google's history, the winning argument was a combination of "doing this bad thing would make me sad," and "doing this bad thing will make Google poorer."

Companies are disciplined by three forces:

Competition (the fear of losing business to a rival);

Regulation (the fear of legal penalties that would exceed the expected profits from a given course of action);

Self-help (the fear that customers or users will change their behavior, say, by installing an ad-blocker).

The ability of googlers to win enshittification arguments by appealing to the company's bottom line was a function of one or more of these three disciplining factors. The weakening of each of these factors is the reason that every tech company is sliding into enshittification at once.

For example, when Google contemplates raising the price of a Youtube subscription, the dissent might say, "Well, this will reduce viewership and might shift viewers to rivals like Tiktok" (competition). But the price-hiking side can counter, "No, because we have a giant archive, we control 90% of searches, we are embedded in the workflow of vloggers and other creators who automatically stream and archive to Youtube, and Youtube comes pre-installed on every Android device." Even if the company leaks a few viewers to Tiktok, it will still make more money in aggregate. Prices go up.

When Google contemplates increasing the number of ads shown to nonsubscribers, the dissent might say, "This will incentivize more users to install ad-blockers, and then we'll see no ad-revenue from them." The pro-ad side can counter, "No, because most Youtube viewing is in-app, and reverse-engineering the Youtube app to add an ad-blocker is a felony under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. As to non-app viewers: we control the majority of browser installations and have Chrome progressively less hospitable to ad-blocking."

When Google contemplates adding anti-adblock to its web viewers, the dissent might say, "Processing users' data in order to ad-block them will violate Europe's GDPR." The anti-adblock side can counter, "But we maintain the fiction that our EU corporate headquarters is in the corporate crime-haven of Ireland, where the privacy regulator systematically underenforces the GDPR. We can expect a very long tenure of anti-adblock before we are investigated, and we might win the investigation. Even if we are punished, the expected fine is less than the additional ad-revenue we stand to make."

When Google contemplates stealing performers' wages through opaque reshufflings of its revenue-sharing system, the dissent might say, "Our best performers have options, they can go to Twitch or Tiktok." To which the pro-wage-theft side can counter, "But they have no way of taking their viewers with them. There's no way for them to offer their viewers on Youtube a tool that alerts them whenever they post a new video to a rival platform. Their archives are on Youtube, and if they move them to another platform, there's no way redirect users searching for those videos to their new homes. What's more, any attempt to unilaterally extract their users' contact info, or redirect searchers or create a multiplatform client, violates some mix of our terms of service, our rights under DMCA 1201, etc."

It's not just Google. For every giant platform, the threats of competition, regulation and self-help have been in steady decline for years, as acquisitions, underenforcement of privacy/labor/consumer law, and an increase in IP protection for incumbents have all mounted:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

When internal factions at tech companies argue about whether to make their services worse, there's a heavy weight tilting the scales towards enshittification. The lack of competition, an increase in switching costs for users and business-customers, and broad powers to prevent users from modifying the service for themselves all mean that even when a product gets worse, profits can still go up.

This is the culprit: monopoly, and its handmaiden, regulatory capture. That's why today's antimonopoly movement – and the cases against all the tech giants – are so important. The old, good internet was built by flawed tech companies whose internal ranks included the same amoral enshittifiers who are gobbling up the platforms' seed corn today. The thing that stood in their way before wasn't merely the moral character of colleagues who shrank away from these cynical maneuvers: it was the economic penalties that befell those who enshittified too rashly.

Incentives matter. Money talks and bullshit walks. Enshittification isn't due to the moral failings of individuals in tech companies. It's possible to have a good internet run by flawed people. But to get that new, good internet, we have to support technologists of good will and character by terrorizing their venal and cynical colleagues by hitting them where they live: in their paychecks.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

[completeconnection]

Advancements in AI Technology: Revolutionizing the World

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as one of the most transformative technologies of the 21st century. From its inception as a theoretical concept in the mid-20th century to its current applications across industries, AI has grown to influence nearly every aspect of human life. This article explores the remarkable advancements in AI technology, highlighting key milestones, innovations, and real-world applications that showcase its immense potential. Alongside, we’ll also discuss how to use data analytics for better digital marketing strategies, 10 key strategies for optimizing your cloud expenses, and explore instant approved article submission sites manual verified for 2025.

The Early Days of AI

AI’s journey began in the 1950s when pioneers like Alan Turing and John McCarthy laid the theoretical groundwork. Turing’s seminal paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950), introduced the concept of machines performing tasks that require human-like intelligence. McCarthy, often referred to as the “Father of AI,” coined the term "Artificial Intelligence" in 1956 during the Dartmouth Conference, which is widely considered the birthplace of AI as a field of study.

In these early years, AI research focused on symbolic reasoning and rule-based systems. Programs like the Logic Theorist (1955) and General Problem Solver (1957) demonstrated AI’s potential in solving mathematical and logical problems. However, limitations in computing power and data hindered significant progress.

The Rise of Machine Learning

The 1980s and 1990s marked a shift towards machine learning (ML), an AI subfield focused on enabling machines to learn from data rather than relying solely on pre-programmed rules. This era saw the development of algorithms like decision trees, support vector machines, and neural networks. Neural networks, inspired by the structure of the human brain, became the foundation of modern AI advancements.

One of the defining moments was the introduction of backpropagation, an algorithm that allowed neural networks to learn more efficiently. This innovation laid the groundwork for deep learning, a subset of machine learning that would dominate AI research in the 21st century.

The Big Data Revolution

AI’s rapid progress in the 2000s and 2010s was fueled by the explosion of big data. With the proliferation of the internet, social media, and IoT devices, vast amounts of data became available for analysis. AI systems leveraged this data to improve accuracy and performance. This development also brought data analytics to the forefront, transforming digital marketing strategies by providing actionable insights into customer behavior.

For instance, search engines like Google harnessed AI to refine their algorithms, delivering more relevant search results. Similarly, recommendation systems, as seen in platforms like Netflix and Amazon, became increasingly sophisticated, tailoring content and products to individual preferences. Marketers now use data analytics to identify customer trends, optimize ad spend, and boost engagement, ultimately enhancing ROI.

Breakthroughs in Deep Learning

Deep learning emerged as a game-changer in AI, enabling machines to process unstructured data such as images, videos, and speech. In 2012, a deep neural network developed by Geoffrey Hinton and his team at the University of Toronto achieved groundbreaking results in image recognition, winning the ImageNet competition. This success demonstrated the power of deep learning in solving complex tasks.

Real-world applications soon followed:

Computer Vision: Deep learning powered advancements in facial recognition, object detection, and medical imaging. Companies like Tesla use computer vision for autonomous vehicles, enabling cars to "see" and interpret their surroundings.

Natural Language Processing (NLP): AI systems like OpenAI’s GPT series and Google’s BERT revolutionized NLP. These models can understand and generate human-like text, powering chatbots, virtual assistants, and translation services.

Speech Recognition: Virtual assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant rely on deep learning to convert spoken language into actionable commands.

AI in Healthcare

One of the most impactful applications of AI has been in healthcare. AI systems have demonstrated remarkable accuracy in diagnosing diseases, predicting patient outcomes, and personalizing treatment plans. For example:

Medical Imaging: AI algorithms can analyze X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans to detect anomalies such as tumors or fractures. In some cases, these systems outperform human radiologists.

Drug Discovery: AI accelerates the drug development process by identifying potential compounds and predicting their effectiveness. During the COVID-19 pandemic, AI played a critical role in vaccine development.

Predictive Analytics: Hospitals use AI to predict patient admissions, optimize resource allocation, and prevent readmissions by analyzing patient data.

AI in Business and Industry

Businesses across industries have adopted AI to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and improve customer experiences. Notable examples include:

Finance: AI-driven algorithms are used for fraud detection, credit scoring, and algorithmic trading. For instance, JPMorgan Chase’s AI system reviews thousands of legal documents in seconds, a task that would take human employees hundreds of hours.

Retail: AI-powered chatbots handle customer inquiries, while inventory management systems predict demand and reduce waste. Amazon’s use of AI in logistics and supply chain optimization is a prime example.

Manufacturing: AI enables predictive maintenance by monitoring equipment and identifying potential failures before they occur. Companies like Siemens and GE utilize AI to optimize production processes.

To manage costs effectively in cloud-based AI and big data implementations, businesses are adopting strategies to optimize their cloud expenses. These include monitoring usage, automating scaling, and leveraging cost-efficient storage solutions, ensuring maximum ROI from cloud investments.

Autonomous Systems

Self-driving cars are one of the most ambitious applications of AI. Companies like Waymo, Tesla, and Uber have made significant strides in developing autonomous vehicles capable of navigating complex urban environments. These systems rely on a combination of sensors, computer vision, and reinforcement learning to make real-time decisions.

Drones and robots are another area where AI has had a transformative impact. Autonomous drones are used for delivery services, disaster response, and agricultural monitoring, while robots assist in warehouses, hospitals, and even homes.

Ethical Considerations and Challenges

Despite its remarkable achievements, AI technology is not without challenges. Ethical concerns surrounding privacy, bias, and accountability have come to the forefront. For instance:

Bias in AI Systems: AI models trained on biased data can perpetuate and even amplify societal inequalities. For example, facial recognition systems have faced criticism for higher error rates in identifying individuals from certain demographic groups.

Job Displacement: The automation of tasks previously performed by humans has raised concerns about job loss in sectors like manufacturing, transportation, and customer service.

Privacy Concerns: AI systems that collect and analyze personal data, such as surveillance technologies, have sparked debates about the balance between security and privacy.

To address these issues, organizations and governments are working to establish ethical AI guidelines and regulatory frameworks. Initiatives like "Explainable AI" aim to make AI systems more transparent and accountable.

AI in Entertainment and Creativity

AI is not just about efficiency and problem-solving; it is also fueling creativity. In the entertainment industry, AI is used to create personalized content recommendations, generate music, and even write scripts. Tools like OpenAI’s DALL-E and Adobe’s Sensei enable artists to create stunning visuals with minimal effort.

AI-generated content is becoming increasingly prevalent, from realistic video game characters to deepfake videos. While these technologies offer exciting possibilities, they also raise questions about authenticity and misuse.

AI and Digital Marketing

The integration of AI and data analytics has transformed digital marketing strategies. AI enables marketers to analyze large datasets to understand customer behavior, predict trends, and personalize campaigns. Combining this with the use of instant approved article submission sites manual verified for 2025, marketers can amplify their reach and authority effectively.

For example:

AI-driven chatbots provide real-time customer support.

Predictive analytics helps optimize ad targeting.

AI tools like HubSpot and SEMrush automate SEO, enhancing visibility.

Future Prospects of AI

The future of AI holds limitless potential. Emerging areas such as quantum computing, neuromorphic computing, and AI-human collaboration are poised to redefine what machines can achieve. Key trends to watch include:

General AI: While current AI systems are specialized for specific tasks, the development of General AI—machines capable of performing any intellectual task that a human can do—remains a long-term goal.

AI in Education: Personalized learning platforms powered by AI could revolutionize education, tailoring lessons to individual student needs.

Sustainability: AI is being used to tackle global challenges like climate change by optimizing energy use, monitoring deforestation, and predicting natural disasters.

Conclusion

AI technology has come a long way from its theoretical origins, evolving into a powerful tool that is reshaping industries and improving lives. From healthcare and business to entertainment and sustainability, AI