In hopes to bolster what it hopes will be the next multi-billion-dollar fantasy movie franchise, the Walt Disney Company says it plans to use Apple’s iPod video as a way to draw in a larger audience for the film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
According to a story Broadcasting & Cable magazine, Disney will be offering special behind-the-scenes clips and video interviews with cast and crew of the upcoming film.
The doenloads will be available from www.narnia.com.
It looks like Time Warner finally knows how to fully integrate AOL into its media offerings. The company plans to use AOL to launch six new advertising -supported on-demand Internet TV channels under the brand name In2TV. Each of the channels will feature programming drawn from more than 4,800 episodes from the Warner Brothers television library.
None of the shows will be available in TV syndication when they are offered on for free viewing on the Internet.
The new rerun channels scheduled to debut in early 2006 are:
LOL TV – Sitcoms
Dramarama – One-hour dramas
Toontopia – Animation
Heroes and Horrors – Science Fiction and Fantasy (mostly)
Rush – Action
Vintage – Misc. classic TV
Of the channels, three are of major interest to fans of science fiction and fantasy.
For the service AOL says it has developed a new way of encoding video called “AOL Hi-Q,” which it says will allow DVD-quality full screen video. In2TV also plans to have computer-based games and viewer polls designed to accompany the series.
According to press reports and a company press release, AOL will be offering about 300 new episodes a month of about 100 TV series in the first year of operation.
AOL did run into one major hurdle in its effort to rebroadcast some of the old Time Warner shows on the Internet. The company said the complex nature of music copyrights forced it to re-master some of the series to replace some of the soundtrack music with new, original music because there was a problem with royalties in some instances.
So, even though some of the oldies may look the same as when they were first broadcast, they may not sound the same.
For those of you Firefly/Serenity fans who just can’t get enough, my friend Grace tracked down the names of the two music tracks that were used in the promotional trailers for the film.
Here’s what she found in her (slightly) edited words:
“The main theme is a song by Kasabian, called ‘Club Foot,’ the most recognizable part of which is at the end of the teaser-trailer, the ‘ahhh-ah-ahhh-ah-aah-ah’ bit. (Come on, you know we’ve all watched and re-watched the trailers enough to know exactly what I mean.)
“The smaller bit is what plays in the longer trailer, original one, when River is taking off her jacket in the bar. Just before she kicks butt, there’s a woman’s voice over a techno beat, going “Everybody say hell yeah”… That one is a song that was originally on the Blade: Trinity soundtrack. ‘Skylight’ by Overseer.”
Firefly/
You scored as Simon Tam. The Doctor. You have a gift for healing that goes beyond education. You took an oath to do no harm, even when your patients have tried to kill you. You are out of place where you are, being used to refined society. However, if you take that stick out of your arse you should be fine.
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