Month: April 2012

75 Years Of Cinecittà – A History And Slideshow

“Founded by Benito Mussolini in 1937 to film propaganda, Cinecittà was the site of 300 films in its first six years. During World War II, the Germans looted the studios, and from 1945 to 1947, Cinecittà was a displaced persons camp, but in the 1950s, American production companies in need of a cheap studio turned to southeast Rome. Hits such as La Dolce Vita, Ben Hur, Roman Holiday and War and Peace were filmed there. When the production of Cleopatra ran over budget in London, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the enormous cast finished the film at Cinecittà.”

Youth America Grand Prix: Is It Worth The Drama And Training? (Dancers Say Yes)

“Almost overnight, Youth America Grand Prix created a central ballet marketplace, and just as suddenly it upped the ante even higher on ballet’s infamously demanding training regimen. Competitions, though controversial, do have their supporters. They argue that contests give American students valuable performing experience, which they generally lack in comparison to their European counterparts.”

Time To Give In To Texting At The Movies? (It’s Happening Anyway, Right?)

“Texting at movies could work as a draw to some moviegoers. Maybe if theaters pitched it as a different kind of “interactive” experience – ITXT, if you will – so that everyone in the theater gets what they paid for. Maybe it could be one showing a day across theater chains with a special hashtag to link everyone at the showing. They could react and interact – and fill each other in on what they’re missing in the movie.”

HBO Turns Up The Temperature On Documentaries

Sheila Nevins, head of HBO’s documentary programming: “We’re not the main reason people subscribe to HBO. In the documentary department, I like to think of us as off-off Broadway in way. In order to get on Broadway, you have to be really careful with your steps — you have to make sure they want to transfer you from Bleecker Street to 42nd Street. You just feel your own ground and get your footing more carefully.”

Theatre For Kids With (Super) Short Attention Spans

“The teacher said an awareness of the short attention spans of children with developmental disabilities was crucial to reaching them. She tries to divide her class into different activities lasting around 10 minutes each; at the recent class, because the theatrical signing and charade-type games were ‘really cooking,’ she said, she allowed them to run longer.”

Chairs (And Other Furniture) For How We Sprawl Now

“While teaching a design class at California College of the Arts several years ago, Brian Kane noticed that his students often didn’t sit. They instead draped themselves across their chairs or lounges, completely absorbed by their various electronic devices. Sealed off from the world by earphones and entranced by glowing screens, they were as likely to sprawl sideways as to sit up straight. Even in public places, many of them liked to rearrange the furniture and transform those spaces into their own customized zones for working, meeting or socializing.”

Quick! Snap A … Description? Cameras Print Text, Not Images

“Instead of producing an image, Richardson’s camera produces a printout of a description of that image. It works like a regular camera — point and click to shoot — but what’s captured in the viewfinder is sent to the anonymous workers in Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program, who are paid $1.25 per image to write a brief description. When they submit their description, typically a few minutes later, the camera prints it out.”