The Big Short
QUIBI I The micro streaming service with with big budgets, big names and big ideas.
Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, Jon Favreau and Steven Soderbergh are just a few of the big-name filmmakers currently working on projects for Jeffrey Katzenberg’s bite-sized streaming platform, Quibi. In short (pardon the pun), Quibi stands for ‘quick bites’, as each episode on the service lasts for 10 minutes or less. Katzenberg – the co-founder of DreamWorks Animation – believes Quibi is the perfect platform to entice a new breed of audiences to the world of entertainment. And everything has been shot specifically for viewing on a mobile phone.
“We’re using a new technology that allows everything to look beautiful on the telephone,” Katzenberg tells Teasers. “Up until now, viewing hasn’t been great on a telephone. It’s been a bit like watching a little postage stamp. Our technology allows for watching video on a phone to be beautiful in both portrait mode and landscape mode. The creative community in Hollywood was incredibly excited when I went to them and said, ‘Here’s a new way of storytelling and a new technology to do it.’ They were really eager to get involved.”
Alongside a slew of documentaries, unscripted series and news content, there are a number of impressive ‘film’ projects already confirmed for the
streaming platform. Sophie Turner puts in a harrowing performance as a woman with PTSD and suicidal tendencies in a movie called Survive. Liam Hemsworth goes on the run in the dystopian actionthriller Most Dangerous Game. And Laurence Fishburne is a lieutenant in the tense cop drama #FreeRayshawn.
Katzenberg is convinced Quibi will appeal to film fans, and Hollywood agrees as the service recently completed a second round of fundraising to the tune of $750 million. Why is the industry so keen to invest in shortform movies made for smartphones? “This is the third generation of film narrative,” Katzenberg explains. “The first generation was movies. The next form of film narrative came along about 50 years later and it was television. We believe the next generation of film narrative is a combination of these two ideas. This involves movies, or stories, that are up to two and a half hours in total, but are delivered in chapters that are six to 10 minutes in length.”
The short-form streaming platform launched in the US and Canada in April, but the company hopes to make the service available in other countries soon. “I’m confident the UK will be the first international territory we will go to,” Katzenberg reveals. “But we don’t have a date yet. Right now, we don’t have a clear path as to when the international roll-out comes, but we are working on it.” Watch this space. AT