Media

“Right now, a streamed concert that sells well will just about cover the cost, and we have to proof every second of the video. Even once live performances come back, I highly doubt we could offer livestreams because of our small staff.” – Chicago Tribune

“The producers of The Shape of Water will no longer have to contend with a copyright lawsuit that claims that Oscar-winning Guillermo del Toro film infringed the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paul Zindel. On Friday, Disney’s Fox units, Guillermo del Toro and other defendants filed court papers indicating that the parties in the litigation had reached an agreement to dismiss the case.” – The Hollywood Reporter

Let’s talk about the Burns Method: the frowning pan across the blotchy manuscript page, the dreamy plunge into the old photograph, the smatters of ambient sound, the talking head who is not so much a talking head as a deeply invested witness. How do you dramatize the interior life? How do you dramatize writing? If you’re Ken Burns, by talking to writers, by watching their faces and bodies register the Hemingway-shocks. – The Atlantic

Or are Chloé Zhao, Emerald Fennell, and others just getting their due like their young male counterparts? Hm. “Marvel, DC and co have awoken to the viability of female-led stories, which has meant a demand for women to direct them. Patty “Wonder Woman” Jenkins was an early example, but there are others. Cate Shortland, purveyor of thoughtful, female-centred stories such as Somersault and Berlin Syndrome, has directed Marvel’s Black Widow. Cathy Yan went straight from her promising Chinese-language debut Dead Pigs to DC’s Birds of Prey. Similarly, Nia DaCosta, who made a striking debut with 2018’s Little Woods, is currently on Captain Marvel 2.” – The Guardian (UK)

With 43 to choose from, which movie will win? And which one can best be described as “self-conscious Scorsese imitation”? – Los Angeles Times

Kinda live, except pre-recorded, with a lot on the cutting room floor. In any case: All of the winners! Right here. – Variety

Listen up, Bridgerton fans, blame streaming (and the focus switch of each Bridgerton book, from which the series draws). At Netflix and other streamers, “the goal is to draw paying subscribers and there’s little incentive to extend even the most popular shows for more than a few years. In that case, Soltman said, it wouldn’t be surprising to have a one-year contract for a limited series or a show with a plan to focus on different characters in each go-round.” – Los Angeles Times

Like the so-called “pivot to video,” a lot of the industry was built on a house of cards that one might, with some justification, call lies. Starting new publications seemed so easy on the internet. “From the start, though, there was a problem. The super-low costs of entry and the lack of geographic limitations that were key to the explosive growth of digital journalism were also key to its undoing. These new publications had no way to recreate the profitability and stability that the old regional monopolies had made possible.” – The Atlantic

The diversity is a silver lining of the awards season’s weirdness. “A deeper, post-Covid existential crisis is on the cards. What is the point of awards, after all? Are they about recognising artistic excellence and the importance of culture? Or are they about showbiz glitz and beautiful people? How much impact do they have? And who gets to do the judging, anyway? Covid has given the whole awards game a shake-up, and maybe that’s what it needed.” – The Guardian (UK)

“The decades-long interdependence of PBS decision-makers, philanthropists, and corporate funders with one white, male filmmaker highlights the racial and cultural inequities perpetuated by this system. The amount of broadcast hours, financial support (from viewers like who?), and marketing muscle devoted to one man’s lens on America has severed PBS from its very roots,” said Grace Lee. – The Hill

“If athlete-driven podcasts were once shoestring affairs, they’ve now been absorbed into the sports-media economy. Last year, [sports-podcast network] The Ringer was acquired by Spotify for around two hundred million dollars.” And the athlete-hosts don’t talk only about the game; they sometimes have on as guests rock musicians, movie stars, entertainment execs, and politicians. – The New Yorker

Several prominent individuals in the industry have spoken out against the restrictive election laws just passed by the Georgia legislature and signed by Gov. Kemp. Yet studios and other companies — who have been willing to threaten boycotts in the past over such issues as Georgia’s abortion laws — are keeping silent so far this time. What are their reasons? – Los Angeles Times

“Cinema-going will inevitably initially be at much lower levels, the question is what level will they return to,” says Richard Broughton, research director at Ampere Analysis. “There have been changes in consumer habits, with the boom in streaming, and theatre owners aren’t in the same position to put their foot down with studios over exclusivity.” – The Guardian

Some of those outspoken industry figures have even gone as far as to call for a boycott of the state, a movement that’s waxed and waned over the years as other controversial legislation, largely concerning abortion and LGBTQ rights, has come and gone. The impact of a boycott could be significant, though, as Hollywood regularly shoots TV shows and movies in the state and has helped to grow Georgia’s robust film business into the nearly $10 billion industry it is. – The Hollywood Reporter

In the backroom, staff members have been busy packaging thousands of online orders for Blockbuster T-shirts, hats and face masks, which are all made by Bend businesses. “It’s a little bit crazy, but it’s a very good thing,” said Bend Blockbuster Manager Sandi Harding. “We’ll take a little crazy if it means keeping the store open.” – Bend Bulletin

“Alan Schwartz, the trustee of a Truman Capote charity, is advancing a new copyright claim that arises from how Paramount has circulated a screenplay [internally] with the intention of turning it into a feature and selling it to a streaming platform. The project remains unproduced; nevertheless, Schwartz alleges … that because of the infringement, his side has already been damaged in the amount of at least $20 million.” – The Hollywood Reporter

The province used to have a cap “that limited film and television productions to a maximum $10-million tax credit claim.” That cap is now gone. – CBC

The streamers battled it out with crates of artisanal food, top-drawer scotch, and other gifts to draw voters’ attention to their movies. When Nomadland “premiered” (or rather re-premiered) on Hulu, for instance, “Fox Searchlight announced a virtual global premiere. … Invitees to the event were sent the aforementioned crate—stuffed with gourmet cheese, ‘humanly raised’ salami, and trail mix—to enjoy while watching the film.” – Fast Company

Amazon Prime Studio’s use of a fictional woman (“a complete piece of tosh, invented by a 19th century Romantic”) to bring Leonardo and his life to the small screen isn’t just fiction, it’s flat-out wrong. Suggestion: “Why not go to the National Gallery when it reopens and look at Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks. The most hypnotic figure in it is an angel whose long curly hair matches Vasari’s description of Salaì and whose tender pale face is magically androgynous. This angel is the most beautiful and most queer bit of painting in Britain. The Leonardo I want to see on screen is the man who painted this.” – The Guardian (UK)

Yikes: “India Eva Rae, who joined Bafta’s Elevate programme in 2019, told the BBC that a casting director told her she was an ‘exotic talent,’ and that they ‘can’t understand the English coming out your mouth.’ Rae also said that she had been told not to report the incident by a ‘mentor’ on the scheme: ‘This mentor told me and other members of the group that we will never work again if we speak up.'” – The Guardian (UK)

Some of the fashion world is really not happy with the guidelines for the in-person Oscars. One fashion writer, echoing many stylists who enjoyed their freedom: “Honestly, all it’s done is make me wish that all the invitees would show up en masse in flannel nightgowns and Ugg slippers, just to thumb their noses at it.” – The Guardian (UK)

And, they say, it’s past time for a change. Netflix has been particularly good at offering changing depictions this year, but the history of Asian women’s depictions in Hollywood is far from fixed. Film scholar Celine Parreñas Shimizu: “The notion of a self-sacrificing, suicidal, servile, suffering, sexually available Asian woman is a prison from which we need to be liberated. … I’m looking forward to the vast expanse of other characters and other stories we can see.” – Washington Post