Entertainment
I didn’t think of becoming popular: Francis Ford Coppola
New Delhi: Francis Ford Coppola, director of highly acclaimed “The Godfather” triology, says he never intended to be a popular Hollywood director.
“I wanted to make small and personal cinema. I never intended to be some important Hollywood director. The success of ‘Godfather’ put me in a different position ” said Coppola while speaking at the HT Leadership Summit at the Taj Palace here Friday.
The trilogy made Coppola popular, but he said he didn’t want to make “Godfather 2” and “Godfather 3”.
“I never thought that there should be more than one ‘Godfather’. I thought I did everything in the first movie. But Paramount (the film’s distributor), said ‘You have the formula of Coca-Cola and don’t want to make Coco-Cola’? I wanted to call the third movie ‘The death of Michael Corleon’,” he recalled.
In a conversation with Riz Khan, he talked about his path breaking films and creative journey and also saluted Indian filmaker Satyajit Ray, Bollywood and Sanskrit epics as well.
“I love Bollywood films because I come from a family involved in musicals.” he said, citing late Bengali cinematic great as an influence.
Coppola, who brought in a wave of new cinema with films like “The Conversation” and “Apocalypse Now”, said one should not give up after failures.
“I believe that you achieve reward for something for which you were once fired for. Hence we should explore. Many people liked the opening of ‘Patton’ (1970) but that got me fired, ” he said.
The director and producer has now ventured into the wine and hotel business.
“All the business I have gone into involves story telling. Wine is like music: the more you know about it the more you enjoy,” said Coppola.
The acclaimed director emphasised on the value of changing techniques and what could be the future of cinema.
“Cinema is a marriage of writing and acting. Ultimately it is in the choice of the story and how that reaches people. Cinema is about to change dramatically. The audience will be the master of the situation and there won’t be Paramount, MGM any more. It will be Netflix and Facebook in the future,” he said.
Entertainment
Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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