“In recent years the task of tabulating a record’s success and popularity has grown more complicated. What used to be an album sale is now an “equivalent album sale.” Each component — that is a song — of a release — otherwise known as a project — is measured and weighted using industry-approved equations. Simple math? Far from it.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Actors In The Doctors Exam Room – A Thriving Market To Play “Standard Patients”
“Word of mouth, and stories in trade papers like Backstage, swell the ranks of actors eager to become Standard Patients. Compensation ranges from $25 an hour in Manhattan to slightly more for assignments involving long commutes to outer boroughs; actors mobilized as “secret shoppers,” who infiltrate clinics to monitor the behavior of entire medical staffs, are paid from the moment they arrive until they leave, including, sometimes, hours of waiting around.”
NEA Study: Number Of Americans Reading Literature Has Declined
“According to the NEA, the share of adults who report reading literature has steadily fallen in recent years, from 47 percent in 2012 to 45 percent in 2013 and 43.1 percent in 2015.”
New Canadian TV Regulations Weaken Incentives To Make Canadian TV
“Canadians who grasp that their money, intended to support Canadian storytelling, is going into the pockets of non-Canadian writers and actors – for-hire players with no connection to Canada – should be infuriated and scandalized. Very few will be in a lather about it, though. The problem for the “creatives” affected by the CRTC decision is multifold.”
How The Principles Of Dance Apply To The Corporate World
“I think of the choreographic practice as the embodied movement of ideas through space and time, a definition that holds equally well if you’re making dances for stages (which we do frequently) or if you’re facilitating a difficult meeting. We’re superattuned to how folks perform in organizations, and I mean “perform” on all registers. How folks speak, who interrupts whom, that nobody seems to like sitting next to Ted – these are all important data points for us.”
TV Ratings For MTV Awards Plummet 30%. But Streams Hit 68 Million
“Ratings for Sunday’s broadcast of MTV’s Video Music Awards plummeted, drawing an audience of 6.5 million viewers, about a 34 percent drop from last year’s total of 9.8 million.”
Competition Director: Music Competitions Are Evil
“The idea of a string quartet competing against another string quartet is perverse, and we go into this knowing it’s a strange paradigm. Like carbon credits in the energy sector, we offset what is inherently problematic with a range of programming and events that make it worthwhile.”
Data Show That MFA’s Might Not Be Worth The Cost
“There is hope for those who hate school: Despite the widespread perception that contemporary art is dominated by an MFA mafia, nearly half of the figures on our list of 500 successful early-career artists either did not have an MFA, or didn’t study art academically at all.”
This Week In Hollywood History: “Wizard Of Oz” Munchkins Were Paid Less Than Toto The Dog
“In 1938, the Munchkins were paid US$50 per week, about US$900 in 2016. Meanwhile, Toto and her trainer earned US$125 per week, which would now equate to about US$2,100 per week. The Munchkin cast never even saw their names in the credits.”
John Cage’s Lifelong Struggle To Earn Money
Frustration is present in Cage’s missives to orchestral and museum directors around the world as he struggles to earn a living and be taken seriously as a composer. For decades, he was his own booking agent and asked people to help underwrite concerts. As well, he pleaded valiantly trying to establish a center for new music at Cornish School, Bennington College, and Mills College—all for naught. Tellingly, he wrote to young composer, “I never made enough money (from my music) to live on until I was fifty. Interrupted my music in order to do odd jobs in order to eat, etc.”