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Wednesday
July 31
YOUR
RIGHTS THREATENED: US lawmakers are seriously considering
legislation that would allow movie and music companies to hack
into personal computers to check for content. "Maybe this
grotesque legislation will die the death it deserves, once sensible
people understand the consequences. But if it or something similar
goes through, its passage will be only one more in a series of
laws and wish lists that have a single purpose. The goal is to
give copyright owners profound control over music, movies and
other forms of information. The fact that this control would do
enormous damage to your rights, and to the future of innovation
in a nation that desperately needs more innovation, is apparently
beside the point." San Jose Mercury
News 07/30/02
BRITISH
MOVIE BOX OFFICE SURGE: British movie theatres had their busiest
June in 30 years. "Spider-Man Peter Parker and the latest
intergalactic offering from the George Lucas stable guaranteed
booming box office figures throughout last month, which totalled
12.2m - an increase of 30% on the same period last year, making
it the highest June on record since 1972." The
Guardian (UK) 07/30/02
SEEING
IS NOT BELIEVING: We see much on TV that seems unexplainable,
unbelievable. Yet it keeps passing by, an endless stream of unexplainable,
unbeliveable things. "Who do you trust? These days, you could
lose big playing this game. That's the message of TV: Stay on
highest alert or risk losing your retirement, your child, your
country, your life." Los Angeles
Times (AP) 07/30/02
EVEN
ON SESAME STEET... Four years ago Sesame Street began
broadcasting an Israeli-Palestinian co-production, conceived in
the afterglow of the 1993 Oslo accords. The collaboration produced
70 half-hour shows, each one containing Hebrew and Arabic segments
that were broadcast to receptive audiences. But under a new co-production
agreement, which now includes Jordanians, the project has run
into difficulty. The name "Sesame Street" has been changed
to "Sesame Stories" because the concept of a place where
people and puppets from those three groups can mingle freely has
become untenable." The New York
Times 07/30/02
Tuesday
July 30
PROTECTING
NET RADIO: Concerned that new royalty fees might put fledgling
internet radio stations out of business, there's a proposal in
the US Congress to exempt small radio stations. "The Internet
Radio Fairness Act would exempt webcasters with less than $6 million
in annual revenues from the additional RIAA royalty and from future
royalty requirements." The Register 07/29/02
Monday
July 29
TAKIN'
IT EASY: Together with nostalgia, fantasy and slam-bang movie-style
action, they portend a new season of escapism. Some of it is designed
as bait for the fickle youth market; some as post9-11 comfort
food. 'For the vast majority of the television audience, TV is
what they do after they get home from a long day at work or after
being with their kids all day. We will leave groundbreaking to
somebody else'." Dallas Morning
News 07/28/02
Sunday
July 28
BIG
OR ELSE: In the new world of globalized culture and giant
movie conglomerates, movies that don't have the potential for
worldwide branding and orifits will see little in the way of promotion
from studios. The Globe & Mail
(Canada) 07/27/02
A
SHIFTING UP AND DOWN: "No matter how you measure upscale
and downscale — by viewers' income and education, as the
number crunchers do, or by common-sense standards of good taste
— the networks are mixing ever-more-sophisticated comedies
and dramas with the increasingly crude game and reality shows
they call 'alternative' programs, a buzzword meaning nonscripted
and cheap to produce. The top network executives agree that this
high-low split now represents a permanent change in the television
landscape." The New York Times
07/28/02
Friday
July 26
EH,
WHO NEEDS THE 4TH AMENDMENT? Hollywood is pushing a new piece
of legislation which the industry hopes will allow it to take
an active role in stopping the video piracy it claims is epidemic.
If passed, the law would allow studios to seek out and disable
pirated copies of movies and music. Seek out? Why, yes, that does
mean what you think it does: the law would allow the movie industry
to hack into your computer more or less at will, and cripple your
system if pirated material is found. BBC
07/26/02
Thursday
July 25
SONY'S
FOUND NEW RELIGION - MOVIES: Since it got into the movie business
in 1989, "Sony has been the butt of jokes, known as much
for churning out over-the-top flops as for profligate spending
that forced it to take a $3.2-billion write-off in 1994, one of
the largest losses in Japanese corporate history." But that
has all changed this summer. "Sony's movie lineup broke all
summer records and helped rack up $1 billion in U.S. ticket sales,
more than most studios make in a year. First-quarter earnings
are due today, and movie profits this year are expected to make
the studio second only to Sony's successful PlayStation in importance
to the bottom line." Los Angeles
Times 07/25/02
THE
GREAT STIMULATOR? A new Australian study of children's TV
viewing says that rather than turning kids into zombies, imaginative
shows stimulate brain activity. The study reported that "shows
that stimulated the imagination led to pretend play, which was
'critical for development' in fostering social skills and building
confidence and self-esteem." The
Age (Melbourne) 07/25/02
TOO
WHITE: American TV networks get low grades from a coalition
of minority groups for the nets' lack of diversity on screen.
"Of the four largest networks, Fox did best, receiving a
C grade. ABC got a C-minus. NBC scored a D-plus, and CBS got the
worst grade, with an overall D-minus, including an F from the
American Indians in Film and Television group. The grades are
embarrassing to the networks, especially because they were already
taking heat for fall schedules." Hartford
Courant 07/24/02
SEX
SELLS? NOT TO US...UH, UH... A new poll says that "most
television viewers believe that broadcasters use sex to boost
their ratings, but that it had little effect. Of those questioned,
85 per cent said programme-makers include nudity and erotic content
in an attempt to persuade them to tune in.The poll, which was
conducted for the Guardian Edinburgh International TV Festival,
which runs from August 23 to 25, also found that 83 per cent of
viewers said they were not tempted to watch programmes with sex
in the title." The Scotsman 07/25/02
PHONING
IT IN: A Minneapolis web designer has produced mini movies
that can be seen on cell phones. Careful though, the plots seem
to involve stick figures getting decapitated... Wired
07/24/02
Wednesday
July 24
COMMIT
TO THE MACHINE? The tech industry is making overtures to the
entertainment industry. Should we be worried? The industry "may
well want to do the right thing by its customers - something you
should not take for granted - but it's also enthusiastically building
the tools that will help the entertainment cartel grab absolute
control over customers' reading, viewing and listening."
San Jose Mercury-News 07/22/02
BACK
TO THE 80'S: Surveying the fall offerings for American TV
could give viewers a serious case of deja vu. Not only are a number
of 80s stars popping up again, but the shows have a distinctly
80s sensibility. "Like ordinary investors, television executives
seem to be feeling bruised and less bold. They may envy HBO its
93 Emmy nominations this year for more avant-garde shows like
Six Feet Under, but these days they are as risk averse
as portfolio managers." The
New York Times 07/24/02
WHO
WANTS TO BE A BOOK CLUB? With typical television industry
timing, the demise of Oprah Winfrey's on-air book club has been
met with a lemming-like stampede of programming executives determined
to take advantage of the popularity of book clubs in general,
and the void left by Oprah's in particular. From a Canadian comedian
determined to go highbrow to the decidedly lightweight contributions
of Live with Regis & Kelly, the broadcast book club
may just be the next cheap 'n easy TV fad. And that wouldn't be
all bad, would it? The Globe &
Mail (Toronto) 07/24/02
Tuesday
July 23
THE
COST OF ROYALTY: The internet's first commercial radio station
has closed down, citing the cost of recently imposed music royalties.
''The bill comes out to around $3,000 a month for KPIG, which
isn't a whole lot, but KPIG is basically a small-market radio
station. And right now, it's not making any money from that stream.''
Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AP)
07/23/02
TV
FOR THE DUMB: A new report in the UK concludes that new-style
TV is breeding ignorance. It says that "the international
documentary is dead, with TV preferring to show programmes involving
clubbing, surfing, popular music and the sex industry. 'There
is a real danger that we are becoming a fragmented society where
some people will have all the international knowledge while the
rest will just be consumers of advertisers'." The
Scotsman 07/23/02
NOT
SO SMART: "Traditional quiz shows, from Mastermind
to Who Wants to be a Millionaire have served to confuse
memory with intelligence. If not obvious enough, a mastermind
is not someone who can reel off the US presidents in order of
height. Some of the world's most stupid people have excellent
memories or mathematical abilities. Scoring highly in an IQ test
won't make you a mastermind either. One person can score a low
IQ but be happy, well balanced, creative and successful. Another
can score in the genius class and be the Unabomber." Sydney
Morning Herald 07/23/02
DIGITAL
PRESERVATIVES: Digital art is in danger of disappearing as
technical formats change, so steps have to be taken to preserve
it. "With digital art, there's no room for things to fall
between the cracks. If you don't do something to preserve it within
a span of five years, it's not going to survive. Some works of
digital art are already gone. Our time frame is not decades, it's
years, at most." Wired 07/23/02
THIS
JUST IN... A Melbourne man has confounded medical experts
and film critics by declaring he has completely understood David
Lynch's Mulholland Drive. The movie had previously been
though to be impenetrable."What makes the Melbourne man's
claim so extraordinary is that he performed this unprecedented
feat of comprehension while drinking an entire bottle of spirits."
The Age (Melbourne) 07/23/02
Monday
July 22
DON'T
NEED NO STINKIN' ACTORS: The latest thing in movies? A technology
coming out of computer games. "Machinima (ma-SHIN-i-ma),
a form of digital filmmaking that piggybacks on the slick graphics
that are easily available from computer games and uses them to
produce animated movies quickly and cheaply. Machinima movies,
which range from short comedies to science-fiction epics, are
produced entirely on computers, eliminating the need to buy costly
equipment, rent spectacular locations or hire glamorous actors.
The films are then distributed free over the Internet." The
New York Times 07/22/02
CENSOR
THIS: Some 1200 people recently applied to fill a vacancy
on the Australian censor's board. "The office's 12-member
classification board looks at virtually every new film, video,
computer game, DVD and adult magazine proposed for screening,
sale or hire in Australia. More than half the material classified
by the board is what's known as 'adult' product." Last year
"the board considered more than 5700 products. Only 382,
or about 7 percent, were general-release movies; 588 were computer
games; and 1832 were publications. Almost half the board's decisions
related to videos for sale or hire. Of the 2912 videos, 933 were
classified X18+." The Age (Melbourne)
07/22/02
- CHIEF
CENSOR RESIGNS: The head of India's censor board has been
forced to resign after proposing that X-rated movies be permitted
in some theatres across the country. "Although it is illegal
to show pornographic films in India, almost every city has cinemas
which do so. Many screen films in the morning, re-inserting
deleted scenes and bribing local police to turn a blind eye."
BBC 07/22/02
Sunday
July 21
LOOSENING
THE CENSOR'S GRIP? In Great Britain, film ratings are not
just advisory, as they are in the U.S., and children under certain
designated ages are not allowed in to films with varying levels
of sex and violence. But the outgoing director of the British
Board of Film Classification is predicting that the U.K. will
scrap the mandatory ratings within a decade, and that the country
will move to a U.S.-style system as public tolerance for movie
action continues to evolve. BBC 07/21/02
Friday
July 19
ROLL
OVER, HOLLYWOOD: So you think the American movie juggernaut
is rolling over all other types of film? There are signs that
Hollywood is losing its grip on the world market. "The thirst
for film has never been greater, but a new reality shapes the
tastes of the young people watching the screen's best and worst.
In Europe alone, the market share for American movies fell from
73 per cent to 65 per cent. European film is about to enjoy a
renaissance of hope among a generation now wearying of the formulaic
American 'product'." London
Evening Standard 07/18/02
THE
"GOOD WAVE": Latin-American eceonomies might be
on the ropes, but a vibrant new wave of films has emerged. The
new cinema is called "la buena onda" (the good wave),
and it's finding international audiences. But just as success
comes, some wonder whether la buena onda is selling out to a globalized
American vision of culture. The Guardian
(UK) 07/19/02
LITTLE
PROGRESS IN DIVERSITY: It's become an annual ritual. Each
year minority groups issue a report critiquing the representation
of minorities on American television networks. And eash year the
story bis more or less the same. Minorities are underrepresented
in TV. This year "the National Hispanic Media Coalition's
third annual diversity 'report card' showed ABC and Fox upped
their grades slightly from last year while NBC and CBS slid backward."
Nando Times (AP) 07/19/02
Thursday
July 18
EMMY
NOMINATIONS: Emmy nominations were announced this morning
in LA, with "a first-year program, HBO's Six Feet Under,
emerging to lead the field with 23 nominations. The series about
a family of undertakers will literally provide some stiff competition
to two-time best drama winner The West Wing." Los
Angeles Times 07/18/02
TECHIES
TO HOLLYWOOD - NOT OUR TABLE: "On Monday, technology
executives, including Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Dell Computer's
Michael Dell and Intel's Craig Barrett, said in an open letter
to entertainment industry executives that they were not about
to create technology that limits computer users ability to copy
and play digital media." Entertainment producers had asked
the tech industry to develop protocols that would limit the technical
ability of devices to copy digital content. Nando
Times (APF) 07/17/02
SO
THE KEY IS EVEN MORE REGULATION? Why does it matter that Canadian
TV networks aren't producing more dramas? "A country without
a healthy diet of continuing, homegrown drama is lacking in the
fibre of contemporary storytelling. In every country that has
even the vaguest notion of a culture and identity, there is a
distinct link between the idea of itself and the fictive imagination.
A country is simply inauthentic if its stories are not reflected
back to itself. That's why Canadian publishing is subsidized and
Canadian television is regulated." The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/18/02
OVERWHELMED
BY SUCCESS? So many Hollywood film productions are shooting
Down Under that the Australian Film Commission is "seeking
to address concerns about the impact on local employment, Hollywood's
slow cultural takeover, and the effect of foreign production on
domestic film culture." Sydney
Morning Herald 07/18/02
HOME
OF THE BRAVE: Some US Republican lawmakers, concerned that
a Sesame Street Muppet portrayed as being HIV-infected for the
South Africa version of the show might be incorporated into the
American version, wrote to PBS president Pat Mitchell to express
their concern. They wrote that they "didn't think it would
be appropriate to bring the Muppet to the United States."
Mitchell assured them the Muppet wouldn't be introduced in the
US. Washington Post 07/18/02
"RECKLESS"
BREACH: In October 2000, the Australian TV show 60 Minutes
aired an interview with actor Russell Crowe. During the interview
Crowe pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up. Now the Australian
Broadcasting Authority has ruled that the segment and subsequent
re-airings of it constituted promotion of smoking, violating Australian
law. "Although there is no evidence that the interview was
intended to promote smoking ... the footage in fact promoted those
things, in that it encouraged smoking. In the ABA's view it is
not unreasonable to expect that viewers may be influenced by Mr
Crowe's behaviour and may believe that it is desirable to adopt
Mr Crowe's behaviour, including smoking Marlboro cigarettes."
Sydney Morning Herald 07/18/02
Wednesday
July 17
IS
THE BBC TOO BIG? The BBC has surging ratings and dominates
the broadcast life of the UK. "The corporation is a many-tentacled
monster that would be unrecognisable to wireless entrepreneurs
of the early 1920s. It has staff numbers that would dwarf many
a small city and an annual income of £3.16 billion that,
if it was a country, would make it a rival of the GDP of Iceland
or Mongolia. Plainly the BBC has more global clout than either
country." But does it have too much power? The
Guardian (UK) 07/17/02
Tuesday
July 16
NO
LONGER A LICENSE TO PRINT MONEY? American TV network execs
are gloomy. "Only two broadcast networks - NBC and CBS -
are expected to turn a profit this year. General Electric's NBC,
which finished the season in first place in the ratings, expects
more than $500 million in profit from the network; CBS, owned
by Viacom Inc., expects network profit this year to top $150 million."
Fox and ABC both expect to post big losses. Los
Angeles Times 07/16/02
WOULD
WE PAY? New technology allows TV viewers to zap commercials.
If this catches on, the TV industry will have to find new ways
to make money. "Let's all look into the future, let's decide
whether we want to pay for our television or pay for it by watching
the commercials." If we all were to pay for watching TV,
it would cost about $250 a year. Denver
Post 07/16/02
Monday
July 15
AT
THE MOVIES: While many things in the pop culture universe
seem to be riding a downward spiral (broadcast TV, cd sales, concert
attendance) the movies are in the passing lane. "So far this
year, box-office revenues stand at $4.71 billion, up an eye-popping
19 percent over last year's record pace. It seems nearly every
weekend sets a new milestone." So why are people taking to
the movies theatres? Dallas Morning
News 07/14/02
- QUALITY
WILL OUT? There are many theories, but "everyone seems
afraid to admit the obvious: There are some fine movies out
there, folks. In fact, in all my years of movie reviewing, I
don't think I've ever spent a more satisfying summer indoors."
Detroit Free Press 07/14/02
THE
NEXT GREAT MOVIE-MAKER? National Geographic is getting involved
with major Hollywood studios in producing big-budget movies. The
latest Harrison Ford adventure is one example. "This is one
of the major things that we bring to the table: the extensive
resources of National Geographic's research departments, which
can provide a much deeper and more detailed exploration of the
story behind the movie. National Geographic is sitting on what
is, potentially, an almost bottomless fund of adventure stories.
It's a specific area. It's finite. But it's definitely a significant
part of the tradition of filmmaking." The
New York Times 07/15/02
WHY
CANADIAN HOMEGROWN TV IS SO BAD: Three years ago the agency
that regulates Canadian TV allowed loopholes that let broadcasters
stop investing in homegrown series. The results are predictable:
"In the past three years the number of truly homegrown, one-hour
prime-time series has dropped from 12 to five. 'It's not like
we had a golden age of television and lost it. But we had an aluminum
age in the eighties and nineties, and we have lost that'."
The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/13/02
- ACTING
DOWN: Why is Canadian TV drama ailing? "What makes
a production Canadian is that it's usually cheaper, chintzier
and more stupidly-scheduled than its U.S. competition. There's
too little creative vision, not enough money, too much network
interference/neglect plus an indecent dependence on the public
teat which often results in hastily-written scripts, slapped-together
shooting schedules and other problems brought about by waiting
around to get the go-ahead from the funding agencies."
Toronto Star 07/14/02
Friday
July 12
ARTS
CHANNEL TO FOLD: Artsworld, the UK premium TV channel featuring
live performances of opera, jazz and ballet launched with great
fanfare 18 months ago, is about to close. The channel needed about
140,000 subscribers to make it viable; it has only 100,000, and
investors are reluctant to put up any more cash. The
Guardian (UK) 07/11/02
- A
SORRY PREDICATBLE TALE: Oh, it's all so predictable. Artsworld
disappears and other broadcasters say we're about to witness
a renaissance of new arts programming. "Oh really? Pardon
me for not exuding more joy, but haven’t we been here before?
I must point out that the Philistines/morons/etc running BBC
One and BBC Two have now cut arts programmes to such a dribble
that the Culture Department’s demand for the BBC to broadcast
230 hours of arts next year (out of 17,000 hours of airtime)
is seen as a huge challenge." The
Times (UK) 07/12/02
NO
BUSINESS IN SHOW BUSINESS: The shutdown of FilmFour, one of
the UK's most interesting movie producers, rips a hole through
the British film industry. Why did it fail? "There was no
satisfactory route to profitability. FilmFour returned operating
losses of £3m in 2000 and £5.4m in 2001, and the underlying
business model was not a basis for building a commercial entity."
The Guardian (UK) 07/12/02
- GOOD
- OR SUCCESSFUL? Was FilmFour a victim of its success? The
company made some brilliant films, but as success grew there
was more pressure to produce more hits. That changed the climate
in which the company decided on projects - instead of making
movies because they were interesting, producers looked more
to making successes. The Guardian
(UK) 07/12/02
AIDS
AWARENESS COMES TO SESAME STREET: The producers of the most
successful children's television program in history have announced
that the South African edition of Sesame Street will debut
an HIV-positive Muppet character this fall, and a similar character
is being considered for the U.S. version. AIDS is, of course,
rampant on the African continent, and the producers of the show
say that "the goal is to help 'de-stigmatize' the disease,
promote discussion about it and 'model positive behavior' toward
an afflicted person among viewers of the program, who typically
are age 3 to 7." Washington Post
07/12/02
JUST
SOME FRIENDLY ASSISTANCE: The Drug Enforcement Administration
is getting into the movie business, whether anyone wants them
there or not. The DEA met with Hollywood bigwigs this week, with
agency head Asa Hutchinson saying he "wanted to help make
plots more realistic." Cheech and Chong were not immediately
available for comment. BBC 07/12/02
FAMILY-FRIENDLY
FARE FLATTENS FAMOUS FLICKS: "Last weekend, four of the
10 top-grossing movies in North America carried either G or PG
ratings from the Motion Picture Association of America."
In fact, kids' movies are cleaning up all across the map these
days, and the trend has led to an explosion in the number of new
releases you can take your five-year-old to.
The Globe & Mail (Toronto)
07/12/02
Thursday
July 11
DIE
WEB, DIE: Web radio has been flourishing. But come October
20, many of the stations will go out of business because of royalty
fees owed to music producers. The retroactive "bill due for
all Webcasters represents several times the total revenue of the
entire industry. The folks at the Recording Industry Association
of America defend this on the ground that without music, you have
no Internet radio." But shouldn't the producers be the very
ones encouraging this dissemination of their products? Newsweek
07/15/02
WOULDN'T
YOU LIKE TO BE A SPANNER TOO: C-Span founder and host Brian
Lamb has a cult following among viewers known as "Spanners"
for their devotion to the cable network. "Lamb is open to
interpretations of himself - the solemn ones, mocking ones, camp
ones. He'll play along. He is resigned to his celebrity niche.
He has been called the most boring and the most trusted man in
America, both of which he would take as a source of pride, or,
at least, humor." Washington
Post 07/12/02
RERUN
REVOLT: TV viewers are abandoning reruns of dramas. The dropoff
in audience is so severe that networks are abandoning reruns of
some shows. "This summer, the average rating for a network
drama repeat is 54 percent lower than a first-run original, which
is in line with previous years. (Comedies fare much better with
only a 45 percent decline.) But the drop-off is more precipitous
— about 70 percent — for such shows as ER, Boston
Public, Alias and The Practice, all of which
depend on continuing stories." Seattle
Times (NYDN) 07/11/02
Wednesday
July 10
RUNNING
AWAY FROM HOME: Filming of productions in California was down
19 percent last month compared to a year ago. "More than
a dozen big-budget movies from major studios are filming this
month in Canada, Australia and other foreign countries as Hollywood's
troubles with runaway production worsen." Los
Angeles Daily News 09/10/02
KOREA'S
BANNER YEAR: Just as in the US, Korea's film industry is having
a great year. Box office is way up, and Korean-made movies are
having their best year since 1984, when the government made it
easier to import foreign movies. Korean movies accounted for almost
50 percent of movie tickets sold in the first half of this year.
Korea Herald 07/10/02
PRODUCT
PLACEMENT/PROGRAM DEFACEMENT: Increasingly, as traditional
ads become less effective on TV advertisers are looking for new
ways to gey their products in front of viewers. "Networks
say they are open to sponsor-supplied programs and elaborate product-placement
schemes as long as the buyers don't dictate content, but who are
they kidding? Why would companies pony up cash without expecting
some input over how it's spent?" Los
Angeles Times 09/10/02
IT'LL
TAKE MORE THAN AN AGENT: America's health maintenance organizations
are tired of being portrayed as the bad guys on TV and in the
movies. So they've hired an agent to try to get a more positive
image portrayed. "What we're trying to do is get a level
playing field. We're not saying it's verboten to attack some part
of the health care system. We're saying there is another side
to what we do." Nando Times (AP)
07/09/02
END
OF VHS? As more stores sell DVDs and cut back on videocassettes,
it seems inevitable that VHS will disappear. In their time, though,
VHS was considered a threat. "At the time there was some
debate about whether this would hurt Hollywood, but over time
it's only enhanced people's interest in movies. It opened movies
up to a broader audience instead of discouraging it." Hartford
Courant 07/10/02
Tuesday
July 9
STUDIO
DOWNFALL: For 20 years FilmFour was the closest thing Britain
has had to a film studio. No more. The studio has gone bust. "The
fortunes of all studios fluctuate, but FilmFour's fall from grace
was alarming and sudden. It seemed to implode in the last 10 months,
thanks to flawed creative decisions, an ill-fated lurch towards
the mainstream, and a run of sub-standard films." The
Telegraph (UK) 07/09/02
Monday
July 8
THE
NEW FILMMAKERS: The falling costs of making movies has attracted
an army of new filmmakers. "Rather than using the pen to
tell their stories, creative wannabees in Sydney are embracing
film-making. The number of film industry hopefuls at short film
festivals has tripled. There are now about 300 film festivals
in Australia, compared with 100 three years ago." Sydney
Morning Herald 07/08/02
REPRESENTING
HOLLYWOOD: With one-time super-agent Mike Ovitz bowing out
of the movie business, there's a power shift to a new, largely
unheard of management company. "With all the focus on the
short term, on making immediate profits, people sacrifice building
brand credibility. I have a different approach. I want to build
credibility behind entertainers. Credibility is another word for
brand equity." Washington Post
07/08/02
Sunday
July 7
RETHINKING
SYNERGY: When AOL merged with Time Warner to create the world's
largest entertainment conglomerate, the tech boom was still on,
synergy was the watchword of the financial community, and the
new behemoth was assumed to be an unstoppable juggernaut. As it
turns out, synergy in the world of mass entertainment may not
be all it's cracked up to be: "People relate much more to
the individual brands. They care about HBO, AOL, Time magazine.
They care about 'Harry Potter'... But it just doesn't matter to
them that all those things are tied together." Chicago
Tribune 07/07/02
JOHN
FRANKENHEIMER, 72: Hollywood director John Frankenheimer,
famous for his tales of political intrigue and dark conspiracies,
has died. His films included Seven Days In May and The
Manchurian Candidate. The New
York Times 07/07/02
Friday
July 5
THE
"PROFIT" MOTIVE: "I used to think people made
films for profit. I know better now. Films are made to generate
income. If profit follows, well and good. But income can be diverted
- not to use a blunter word - whereas profit has to be declared,
shared, and have tax paid on it. Which is one reason why many
movies, earning box-office millions, do their best not to come
into profit too soon, if ever, by loading themselves with distribution
costs. But there is a class of film that can create a profit even
before it's made - and needn't ever be shown." London
Evening Standard 07/05/02
AMERICA'S
FASTEST GROWING ARTS SHOW: Studio 360 is the fastest
growing show on American public radio. A show about arts and culture,
it tries to look at creativity as part of everyday life. "The
goal for the show is to demonstrate that culture is a kind of
continuous panorama. We think of culture as being balkanized niches.
It's a disparate fabric, but it's all one fabric."
Los Angeles Times 07/05/02
THE
SOUND OF SATELLITE: Satellite radio offers better sound and
many more programming choices than traditional radio. But are
people ready to spend hundreds of dollars on new equipment and
pay a monthly fee for the privilege? "Just like FM took advantage
of all of AM's vulnerabilities, [satellite radio] is taking advantage
of all of FM's vulnerabilities." Christian
Science Monitor 07/05/02
THE
BOLLYWOOD METHOD: Bollywood is finding fans worldwide. Its
methods of making movies are unique. "It's the most organised
chaos in the world; nothing should work yet everything does. There
are no shooting scripts, no shooting schedules, no call sheets.
The crew may be phoned in the morning to shoot that day. Actors
work on several movies at a time and are often handed their scripts
five minutes before filming. This is to avoid someone outside
pinching the idea and making the same movie." The
Age (Melbourne) 07/05/02
THE
ENEMY R US: Do TV viewers have a "contract" with
TV producers wherein they agree to watch commercials in return
for programming? "Napster may—and I stress, may—have
been legitimately labeled piracy, but now all forms of consumerism
are being criminalized with ever-decreasing degrees of credibility."
Big media is losing control and as it does, is treating its customers
as crimminals. "Name-calling is the last resort of once powerful
institutions that are finding themselves losing control in the
face of rapid media change." MIT
Technology Review 07/04/02
Thursday
July 4
THE
TV FACTOR: The nature and tone of television has changed over
the years. Maybe not for the better? "TV, once expected to
be a polite guest in our living rooms, has turned into more of
drunken party-crasher. Sex, violence and language that in earlier
days would have triggered FCC threats and congressional investigations
is now routine." Chicago Tribune
07/04/02
Wednesday
July 3
EGOYAN
BY A NOSE: The great competition is over. Atom Egoyan's Ararat
will play in the high-profile opening night slot at the Toronto
International Film Festival, beating out David Cronenberg's Spider.
Except that it wasn't a competition. Really. They swear it wasn't.
But whatever it was, all of Toronto has been talking about it
for quite some time, and the debate over which film truly represents
the best of Canadian cinema will likely continue. Toronto
Star 07/03/02
- WHAT
THE CRITICS THINK: So is Atom Egoyan "poncy and pretentious"
or "accessible... with a streak of black humour"?
Is David Cronenberg "provocative and bankable" or
just a high-minded horror purveyor with a fixation on "fleshy
joysticks and umbilical sockets"? Three critics square
off on the high-profile debate surrounding TIFF's two stars
of the moment. National Post (Canada)
07/03/02
BYE-BYE
INDEPENDENTS(CE): TV's independents - from stand-alone producers
to local stations - continue to disappear, swallowed up by the
entertainment industry's appetite for consolidation. Several producers
spent the early 1990s vainly sounding alarms about this scenario,
but the government has nevertheless spent the past decade stripping
away rules that prevented the big from getting bigger, turning
the producer-network game - never an entirely fair fight to begin
with - into the equivalent of Florida State versus Sister Cecilia's
School for Wayward Girls. As a result, truly entrepreneurial program
suppliers have mostly been transformed into employees."
Los Angeles Times 07/03/02
FALLEN
FROM GRACE, AND BITTER AS HELL: Time was in Hollywood when
you couldn't make a move (or a movie) without Michael Ovitz's
say-so. But today, Ovitz is a bitter and broken man, a few years
removed from his embarrassing ouster at Disney, and smarting from
the collapse of his once-dominant talent agency. Ovitz is lashing
out in a soon-to-be-published interview in Vanity Fair,
claiming, among other things, that a Hollywood "gay mafia"
is responsible for his downfall. The
New York Times 07/03/02
Tuesday
July 2
A
FIRST - CABLE BEATS BROADCAST: For the first time, all the
US cable channels combined have more viewers than all the combined
broadcast channels. Cable's trend of producing more original series
has helped boost the cable nets' numbers. Orange
County Register (NYDN) 07/02/02
OSCAR
LOOKS FOR SWEEP: The Oscars are being moved back from March
to February. Why? Well, the Academy has been worried about slipping
ratings. And the TV networks figure to get a ratings boost during
February sweeps. Washington Post 07/02/02
DVD's
RULE: CD sales might be in a slump, but DVD's are hot. "Consumers
are on pace to spend $11 billion on DVD sales and rentals this
year, making it the fastest-growing home-electronic product ever.
DVDs routinely make more money in their opening weekend than comparable
theatrical releases. Video games aren't far behind, with sales
reaching $6.3 billion last year, nearly double what they were
five years ago." Why? They've gotten cheaper, and they're
stuffed with cool features - unlike stodgy CD's which are overpriced
and the same-old same-old. Los Angeles
Times 07/02/02
THE
NEW LATIN FILMS: After decades "in the doldrums"
Latin American films are winning new international audiences.
"We are still finding and fighting for our identities - it's
the opposite from Europe, in which everything already has its
place. We are societies in movement, and chaos and collision are
always part of everyday life. There's an extraordinary sense of
urgency, energy and pertinence, which translates into these films
in a very muscular and organic manner. Obviously it's not something
which will please the ministries of tourism. But it is what it
is." The Telegraph (UK) 07/02/02
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