There is “an expanding cadre of high-level physicists, engineers and other scientists, including many former NASA employees, who have left careers in aerospace and academia to work in the movie business. Demand for their services has grown as animated movies, once created by hand, push the boundaries of what can be created on a computer screen.”

“In its nearly 80-year history, the Cinecittà film studio lured the world’s greatest directors and biggest movie stars to this Italian capital, earning it the title of Hollywood on the Tiber. Now the studio, its fortunes in decline and its edges fraying, is hoping to attract some less famous visitors when Cinecittà World, a new theme park dedicated to its golden era, opens on Thursday.”

“The move gives shareholders – and 21st Century Fox – fewer avenues to press the company into a potential deal with Fox, which recently made an unsolicited $80 billion offer to combine the companies.”

“Special effects, key components of what historically made movies magical, have lost most of their magic because they have become so realistic and commonplace.”

“If everyone who wants to see your movie is part of the pool of people who gave you money online and you were able to raise $1 million or $2 million, that’s a fantastic story. But if those are the only people who are interested in your movie, that’s a big disaster.”

“The company said revenue from its streaming content service rose nearly 50% to $1.2bn, compared to $837m a year earlier. Netflix said it added 1.69 million users during the period from March to June. The streaming video firm now has 50 million users in over 40 countries.”

“The current way TV is packaged, divided into hours and half-hours and series (or as we now call them “seasons”), is a product of the linear channel age. Online delivery opens the way for exploring new forms of TV.”

“So as we try to make sense of Mandatory Fun, Al’s fourteenth studio album – and as we round into the fourth decade of his career – it’s becoming clear that his old-school/new-school media business playbook is a little genius. In many corners of the English-language Internet, this week has been Al-saturated, his new music videos and songs unavoidable. How does he do it? Where will it lead? And will this be his media strategy forever?”

“The BBC spent £6 million less on talent in 2013/14, the Corporation’s latest annual report claims, with a £194 million bill for its star presenters and performers representing a 15% fall in wages over the past five years.”

“Sitting on my sofa, push-button dialing system by my side, I can’t help but feel that I’m filing a dispatch from a future entertainment universe. We should embrace and celebrate the fact that we can now watch great movies on TV the same day they’re in theaters. And yet this development feels like it’s brought on more consternation than joy.”

“All of this leaves me wanting more, specifically more context: such as what greater societal forces are shaping the types of games we play and why? And what do different games reveal about us as a culture?”

As Microsoft lays off 18,000 people, one of the departments slashed is the Xbox Entertainment Studio, launched in 2012 and with nearly 20 series in some phase of development.

” ‘It’s a pleasure to talk about him, but there will come a time very soon where I say, “I’ve done that, I am closing the door and moving on,” ‘ explained Mr. Suchet, 68, clad in a very un-Poirot-like blue dress shirt and jeans.”

“The easy tropes and practiced banter, the reliable fulfilling of a sitcom’s tasks, contributed to a sense of permanence. … Here was a world void of dread, danger, and anxiety, a place in which work and play were indistinguishable, in which jobs just meant different aesthetics attached to the same basic glee.” Exhibit A: Just Shoot Me.

“It’s only common sense that the devaluation creative industries face is having a sustained negative effect on the investment available for sustainable artistic careers. Through new groups like the Content Creators Coalition, artists have begun to advocate for themselves. But forging an internet that takes individual rights (including privacy), cultural diversity and sustainable progress seriously also requires that consumers get on board.”

“A Montreal filmmaker fears that she could lose the centrepiece of a federally subsidized art installation after Canadian customs officers intercepted her material and deemed that it contravened the country’s trade sanctions against Iran.”

The mega-conglomerate would certainly have been Hollywood’s heaviest hitter, but the risks of meshing the two studios would have been risky for everyone involved, including the entire Los Angeles area.

Nathan Rabin: “So I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to pop culture: I’m sorry for creating this unstoppable monster. Seven years after I typed that fateful phrase, … I would welcome its erasure from public discourse.”

“It’s as if, through sales figures, profits and other assorted fiscal headlines video games will be able to buy their way to legitimacy. How fitting that a medium which typically encourages its players to exert dominance over the competition would frame its worth as a battle, usually with cinema, as if this were a fight to be won, as if the winner would somehow usurp the loser, as if each venue for human expression didn’t have unique capacity for joy, wonder and meaning.”

“SAG-AFTRA reported a year-end surplus of $8 million “due to expense management efforts and increased revenue from dues and initiation fees.”

“The only thing standing between the show keeping the audience on its side and outright mutiny is often the warm-up (and his reliable sidekick, the DJ), who aims to keep those long gaps between scenes light-hearted and funny, then drop the audience right back into the action when taping resumes.”

“We need to be responsive to the way the industry is evolving and reflective of the kind of shows being produced … So much production is being done around town, and they don’t all fit into nicely, cleanly defined boxes.”

“The future of photography is the past, both as subject and technique. Time-lapse photography is coming to your smartphone, and when it does, expect to see the passage of time take over all your albums, feeds, and streams.”

“Thus far the majority of Internet Culture has yet to stray from its medium of birth. And why would it? Not all mediums are equipped to handle all forms of expression.”

“Familiarity also breeds contempt. Contempt breeds indifference. And when audiences feel like they’ve seen something, or someone, once too often, they start consulting their iPhones to check the weather and put off the movies for another week.”

“BBC director general Tony Hall has unveiled plans to allow the Corporation’s in-house production teams to make content for rival broadcasters, as part of a shake-up he has described as a ‘competition revolution’.”

Here’s the complete list of Emmy nominees for 2014.

“Tablets have become as mundane as the PCs whose decline they hastened. Instead of radical hardware innovations, the maxed-out market is racing toward as many screen sizes as shoe sizes.”