December 2009

ReelSurfer: A White Label Solution For Video Search

ReelSurfer is proud to be featured by TechCrunch.

When you’re looking for a specific movie clip, it can often be hard to find exactly what you’re looking for on sites like YouTube, which don’t let you search for keywords generated from dialog spoken during a video. That’s where ReelSurfer comes in. The startup processes long-form video and turns it into short, relevant segments that are easy to watch and search through. With this technology, ReelSurfer aims to increase the value of online content by allowing users to find the 30 second segment they really want to watch, and then save, share and buy the content.

Read the rest of the article here

ReelSurfer Teams With One World Children's Fund

ReelSurfer is thrilled to be helping the One World Children's Fund power its video to spread its message to as many people as possible.

"ReelSurfer is proud to be helping the One World’s Children Fund spread its message of compassion in action using digital video,” said Neil Joglekar, co-founder of ReelSurfer. “ReelSurfer technology will enable the OWCF to increase the virality of its video content, making it more accessible to viewers worldwide. We view this partnership as an opportunity to use our technology to help affect positive change and champion a truly worthy cause.”

Read the Press Release Here

ReelSurfer Closes Deal with San Bernardino Community College District for Video Search

The San Bernardino Community College District has partnered
with ReelSurfer to enhance the video indexing delivery functionalities of their online digital repository, EduStream. EduStream is a statewide project serving over 170 institutions across 10 states and is sponsored by the 110 California Community Colleges and their Chancellor’s Office.

When asked what ReelSurfer will do for EduStream, Dr. Glen Kuck, EduStream’s Project Director stated, “More and more, faculty are utilizing digital media to improve their ability to convey knowledge to their students. Subsequently, there is a growing need to align video search and distribution pathways with how faculty and students interact. With EduStream now featuring ReelSurfer’s proprietary indexing and search technology, faculty and students will be able to search and share segments inside videos using custom playlists and social network integration. ReelSurfer really took the time to hear our needs and vision for EduStream. Our partnership with ReelSurfer has enabled us to provide faculty and students with a high quality, customized approach to serve more faculty and students sooner. We are proud of what this partnership has enabled us to provide our member institutions and look forward to expanding it in the future.”

Customer Showcase: Brave New Educators, Powered by ReelSurfer

Brave New Educators is a ground-breaking digital learning initiative of Brave New Foundation. Brave New Foundation uses a model of media education and grassroots volunteering to champion social justice issues and encourage civic participation. Designed to make BNF’s documentary archives of finished and raw video widely available for universities across the country, Brave New Foundation has chosen to provide access to students and professors across a broad range of disciplines including law, ethics, religion, politics and business. “ReelSurfer is the engine that drives Brave New Educators – without it our program simply could not go forward,” says Myra Donnelley, Development Director for Brave New Foundation. “Our students and faculty members represent a wide range of skill sets with varying access to technological tools. ReelSurfer is the great leveler, making BNF’s treasure trove of media materials easily accessible and user-friendly for even the novice media maker – even technophobes like me can use it with ease.”

The project was successfully piloted this fall at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Multimedia Literacy and in Politics and Film classes at Occidental College. Interested educators are encouraged to click here to learn more about this program.

September 2009

ReelSurfer Closes Deal with Brave New Films for Footage Search

ReelSurfer is proud to announce a new deal with Brave New Films, a production company founded by Robert Greenwald that promotes progressive political videos. ReelSurfer is partnering with Brave New Foundation’s Brave New Educators initiative to make raw and finished video assets available for cross-disciplinary academic and scholarly use in colleges and universities. BNF is piloting this program this fall with the Institute of Multimedia Literacy at the University of Southern California and with Film and Politics classes at Occidental College. The pilot program is generously underwritten by a grant from the Fledgling Fund, a supporter of social justice documentary films.

Visual Effects Society Partners with Silicon Valley Startup ReelSurfer to Power Online Video

The Visual Effects Society (VES), the world's premiere visual effects
organization, announced today that it will work with ReelSurfer, an innovative video search and interaction system, to power the video components of its members site.

The Visual Effects Society website will provide access to current and archived high-quality panels and awards ceremony videos. The site will utilize ReelSurfer indexing and search technology to allow its members to find specific portions of video content by typing basic search terms. Users can then use custom ReelSurfer interaction features to communicate with other VES members through these educational videos.

Read Press Release: http://www.awn.com/news/internet-and-interactive/ves-partners-reelsurfer-power-online-video

ReelSurfer Selected to Present at 2009 Dow Jones VentureWire Technology Showcase

ReelSurfer is excited to announce that it was selected to present at the 2009 Dow Jones VentureWire Technology Showcase. The Showcase will spotlight 75 companies considered by VentureWire editors to be industry leaders. The Showcase will allow investors, industry analysts, and fellow entrepreneurs a look at new companies with the latest innovations.

June 2009

ReelSurfer Creates Pilot For Stanford Medical School

ReelSurfer Announces Partnership with Automatic Sync Technologies

ReelSurfer has forged a partnership with Automatic Sync Technologies. Automatic Sync Technologies provides automated captioning, audio synchronization, and audio/video search tools for web casting, DVD, and broadcasting applications. Our strategic agreement will provide the company with an innovative search solution, while also allowing ReelSurfer to improve its workflow and scalability as well as enhance its educational offering.

- Automatically index digital content to increase accessibility through search

- Virally spread short form content with custom ReelSurfer features

- Monetize content through sale of complete work, productized clips, and advertising

We have decided to leverage Twitter for real time updates. Therefore, we will be distributing the newsletter quarterly, but please join us on twitter for continued conversations about ReelSurfer and trends/events in the digital media and educational technology space.

Follow us for realtime updates! (@ReelSurfer)

ReelSurfer Designs First Ever Digital Footage Logging System

ReelSurfer is looking for partners, filmmakers, and content creators who embrace the use of technology to be the first customers to use our one-of-a-kind digital indexing and processing system for raw footage.

The system allows content creators to cut costs and focus their attention on what truly matters: the creative quality of their work. We allow users to digitally log and store footage in a secure system that they can be accessed locally or remotely at a later date.

The system takes the guesswork out of the content creation process and maximizes the value of material that has already been shot.

Please inquire for details about becoming part of our lighthouse customer program by contacting us at info@reelsurfer.com.

ReelSurfer Welcomes Christopher Bankston to the Team

Christopher Bankston, owner of Vista 2020 Ventures, is an award winning film and content producer with more than twenty years of international experience in a wide range of entertainment genres including film, television, commercials, music and video games. He was one of the pioneers of interactive movies known as Full Motion Video (FMV) and has successfully completed more than 100 productions. He recently produced the US feature length documentary, "Tapestries of Hope" which received the Aloha Accolade Award for Excellence in Filmmaking. Mr. Bankston ran SEGA Studios in Beverly Hills before starting his own production company. We are very excited to have him advise us on the development of our new raw footage logging and search system.

March 2009

ReelSurfer is Thrilled to Welcome Carl Rosendahl to the Advisory Council

New Interface Provides Fresh New Look for ReelSurfer

ReelSurfer is excited to release its new- look, public facing website. The site allows you to learn more about our various products as well as explore our new educational online demo.

You can check it out at:

http://www.reelsurfer.com

- Automatically index digital content to increase accessibility through search

- Virally spread short form content with custom ReelSurfer features

- Monetize content through sale of complete work, productized clips, and advertising

In Part 2 of this two-part series, Mike Bonifer, CEO of GameChangers, co-founder of Network LIVE, and creator of the Toy Story interactive website and Anand Chandrasekaran, technology entrepreneur, Executive Producer of Carma (which premiered on an Internet 'pay-per-view' system) and Producer of "Tapestries of Hope," discuss what is changing in the world of digital media and how new technologies are revolutionizing the content landscape.

How are people starting to differentiate between different methods of categorizing video (indexable searching, user tagging, etc)?

AC: The quantity of video that is made available each year is greater than the ability to accurately tag it. We need technology solutions that index this content and make it truly searchable. Solutions that try to address this need from a speech-to-text standpoint alone have proven to be inaccurate, providing a less than compelling end-user experience. This is different for user generated video though, where the user is probably still the best person to categorize the video clip.

How do you think publishers can best take advantage of online digital media solutions?

AC: Films like Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield have demonstrated that online buzz associated with viral clips can drive box-office for new movies. But these loops are initiated through the film's marketing budget. The next step is to use solutions that create more self-propagating loops that allow for fan participation and enable the user to introduce their own personality and context into the mix. In addition, this can be a great way for content producers and studios to bring back titles from their libraries into the public zeitgeist based on user discovery, personalization and sharing.

Why have content owners recently been more willing to allow users to watch their media online?

AC: A few months ago, I was at a Producers' Guild panel and heard more than one speaker blast Hollywood for being 'clueless'. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most studios are actively figuring out new models, while protecting their core franchise - the DVD revenue stream. It's the classic innovator's dilemma.

A few different factors come into play here. First, content producers are making good progress in targeting their niches (fanboys, teenagers, socially conscious audiences etc.). The Internet is the best place to do that in a cost-effective way. Secondly, use-case scenarios and ways to drive monetization in a direct (i.e. online) or indirect (offline) ways are becoming clearer. Thirdly, they are actively recruiting partners or executives who 'get' the Internet and can drive these changes internally. Finally, (and quite honestly) they have had the advantage of having seen the music industry struggle to adapt to online audiences and learning from their experiences.

ReelSurfer would like to thank Mike and Anand for their throughts. We look forward to tackling many of the challenges that you discussed above.

February 2009

ReelSurfer is Proud to Welcome Bill Fay to the Advisory Council

ReelSurfer is excited to announce the addition of Bill Fay to the Advisory Board.

Bill has been a successful producer and executive producer for over twenty years. The films to his credit include “The Patriot,” starring Mel Gibson, the groundbreaking Spartan epic “300,” “Superman Returns,” and the blockbuster “Independence Day.” Bill is currently President of Production at Legendary Pictures. Among the movies Legendary has produced and co-financed are the worldwide hits “Batman Begins,” “300,” the upcoming “Watchmen,” and the smash hit “The Dark Knight,” which grossed $1 billion at the box office and was nominated for eight Academy Awards. We look forward to seeing how his immense domain expertise can help ReelSurfer grow.

ReelSurfer Launches New Website Interface

ReelSurfer is excited to release its new look public facing website. The new site allows you to learn more about our various products as well as explore our new educational online demo.

You can check it out at:

http://www.reelsurfer.com

- Automatically index digital content to increase accessibility through search

- Virally spread short form content with custom ReelSurfer features

- Monetize content through sale of complete work, productized clips, and advertising

In Part 1 of this two-part series, we thought it would be interesting to share ideas from two people who have been at the intersection of technology and media in very interesting ways. The first is Mike Bonifer, CEO of GameChangers, co-founder of Network LIVE, and creator of the first Pixar interactive website. The second is Anand Chandrasekaran, technology entrepreneur, Executive Producer of Carma (which premiered on an Internet 'pay-per-view' system) and Producer of "Tapestries of Hope." Below, they discuss what is changing in the world of digital media and how new technologies are changing the content landscape.

How do you think the media world is changing?

MB: I think the pertinent question is How is media changing us? How is it changing people and communities and cultures? As you know, I was present at the birth of what I believe to be a monumental media event, the motion picture TRON, in 1982. What I saw was how new media could inspire people. I'm not talking about the motion picture itself, but about the CGI and the production process used to create it. It literally turned on a generation of artists, designers and animators. Here was a great new set of tools, and look at where the CGI industry is today.

Today, probably millions of people make their livings creating CGI. At the time of TRON, there were dozens. I don't think human nature has changed all that much since 1982, but how we work and connect with one another has changed dramatically. I think media will continue to inspire and connect people, as it always has, and because we are SO connected and the media is SO ubiquitous, the changes will be profound. In the big picture, the tools are more important than the media itself. Some of these tools (I'm thinking particularly of those that support distributed production models) will be the inspiration for whole new industries.

AC: In the early to mid 1900s most of the technology innovation centered around media production. TechniColor in 1915, The Jazz Singer in 1926 which first caught the audience's imagination with spoken sound, and CinemaScope in 1927. They were focused on making the medium richer. But the economics of actual distribution has stayed relatively stagnant, during which period the cost of filmmaking, through the emergence of all-digital filmmaking, has reduced drastically. That is causing the innovation to move towards exhibition and distribution, particularly alternative methods of discovering and consuming premium content.

Why do you think large content producers don't embrace sites like YouTube?

MB: Generally, they don't understand it. Institutionally, they shy away. The big media companies are far from early adopters. The disruption that comes with exploring new models and new technologies

is not welcome. Look at what happened to AOL after it became part of TimeWarner. I shudder to think how many 'notes' the MySpace execs get from their landlords at Fox. When it comes to YouTube specifically, big media is so conditioned to 'protect the copyright' that all they see there is a threat. So, with rare exceptions (the Letterman show's Top Ten Lists, for example) they are reluctant to behave in a way that cuts against the corporate grain ('protect copyrighted material!') in order to explore new models when it comes to both distribution and copyright law. I think the copyright laws need a drastic re-write, but that's a whole other story.

AC: About 5 years ago, the pent up demand for video on the Internet plus the growth in digital cameras and editing software led to a huge growth of "user-generated" videos and audiences for them. But as Hulu has demonstrated in recent months and as we will see with ReelSurfer, once this appetite is initially catered to, users want to gravitate to higher-quality shows with production values online. YouTube will however continue to be the destination for the long tail of online video.

Read next month as Anand and Mike describe how content owners are adapting to current innovations in technology...

November 2008

- Automatically index digital content to increase accessibility through search

- Virally spread short form content with custom ReelSurfer features

- Monetize content through sale of complete work, productized clips, and advertising

Recent Activities

ReelSurfer Finalizes Deal with USC Film School

ReelSurfer is proud to announce the closure of our first customer deal with the Institute for Multimedia Literacy at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. We look forward to forging a strong relationship with the USC community.

ReelSurfer 1.0 Released into Private Beta

Anand Chandrasekaran Joins Board of Directors

ReelSurfer is thrilled to announce the addition of Anand Chandrasekaran to the Board of Directors. Recepient of the 2004 MIT Global Innovators award, Anand's diverse background includes past experience as co-founder of Aeroprise, Inc and executive producer of “Carma.” Currently, he is producing the new documentary "Tapestries of Hope."

ReelSurfer Welcomes Mike Bonifer and Virginia Kuhn to ReelSurfer Team

ReelSurfer is proud to announce the additions of Mike and Virginia (Co-Founders of Game Changers, LLC). GameChangers is a business communication and learning company that helps clients use improvisation to perform productively in the Networked World. Mike and Virginia bring an intimate knowledge of the media and entertainment industries.

December 2008

ReelSurfer would like to thank the USC - IML program for its continued help with product feedback. This has led to the development of many new and exciting features.

"ReelSurfer proved invaluable in helping my students locate clips for their project from among the many hours of footage we made available. The ability to search textually to acquire video saved them hours and hours of time, allowing them to concentrate on the intellectual component of their work. They spent time creating, rather than doing manual tasks, and the projects will have the type of rigor they could not have had without this help from ReelSurfer."

-Virginia Kuhn, USC School of Cinematic Arts Institute for Multimedia Literacy

- Automatically index digital content to increase accessibility through search

- Virally spread short form content with custom ReelSurfer features

- Monetize content through sale of complete work, productized clips, and advertising

ReelSurfer: "Behind the Scenes"

We thought you might find it interesting to receive a monthly commentary on what is happening behind the scenes at ReelSurfer. Here is a glimpse into what we're thinking, doing, and planning for the future. Enjoy.

By: Neil Joglekar

I love talking about ReelSurfer. Explaining what we do, who we are, and what we want to become. Yet every time I start, I get interrupted in about 2 minutes with:

Oh… you do video search.

After the 100th time, I have crafted the perfect response, a smile. That’s right, video search.

I then have to explain that the video search that comes to mind is not our plan - that is not our vision. I explain that we are not YouTube, we are not Blinkx, or Hulu or VouVeeMou (or any other made-up multi-voweled word). We, I say, are different.

I am not sure when the words video search became so taboo. What interests me is that when people go to YouTube, they think what they are doing is video search.

I go to YouTube and enter something (maybe it’s Will Farrell or Hulk Hogan or whatever) and the experience falls into three categories:

1. I cannot find anything. How many times have you looked for that great line from the movie you can’t remember the name of, only to have the dreaded “no search results found”?

2. I get 10,000 results, but none of them is what I want. When I am looking for Ari Gold, I want Jeremy Piven, not the thousands of people acting out their fantasies of being in Entourage.

3. If I do find the holy grail of a relevant search result, it is never quite the right part. If I look for Timon from The Lion King, I want the scene with him dancing the hula, not only the popular “Hakuna Matata.” Yet, at this point I’m so relieved I found something, I consider it a success.

Isn’t search supposed to be a process where at the end you find what you want? This seems more like bargain shopping at a discount store. You settle for what is there.

The problem is that you are searching for keyword tags, classified by the person who uploaded it. You are not searching for what you want to find. ReelSurfer was created to solve all of these problems. First, we provide an organized archive of video that is properly and consistently indexed.

Second, this archive will be limited to professional content, so anyone can’t post his or her latest home audition for the world to see. And most importantly, we give you search access to the whole video, not just the titles.

Sure, it’s great to stumble on the occasional YouTube video where someone jumps over a car or a baby is saying something funny, but the experience is too confusing. It seems odd that at the level of sophistication we have for video, the search results are so primitive. Why do I have to depend on someone tagging something so that I can find it? That’s not video search.

It is like going to a library and searching for a book based only on the title. The World Is Flat… is that a book on Geography? Bringing Down the House? Demolition? You get the idea.

Why search at all if it’s not about the content inside of the book? That is a capability video users should have at their disposal.

That’s what ReelSurfer is all about. Video search as it’s supposed to be: users finding the content that they’re really looking for.