Category: media

“Jobs that the creative community once relied on to stay afloat during rough times are themselves starting to dry up in this recession. That includes everything from directing assignments at commercial production houses to positions at restaurants, bars, hotels and retailers.” While that’s bad news for people who’ve been pink-slipped from studios, it’s “even worse for people who are struggling to break into the biz.”

A video of 200 people doing a choreographed dance routine to “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music in Antwerp’s (very handsome) Central Station has racked up almost a million hits and is reducing bloggers to burbling (“How could you not smile for hours? I’m smiling now just typing this!”). It hardly seems to matter that it’s all a publicity stunt for a Flemish version of the CBC reality show How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?.

With a team of anthropologists, a “kid whisperer” has “spent 18 months peering inside the heads of incommunicative boys in search of” the revealing “psychological nugget. Disney is relying on her insights to create new entertainment for boys 6 to 14, a group that Disney used to own way back in the days of ‘Davy Crockett’ but that has wandered in the age of more girl-friendly Disney fare like ‘Hannah Montana.'” Her studies have already borne fruit on the new cable channel and website, Disney XD.

“Film production may be stalling in Los Angeles, where filming is down more than 56 percent in the first three months from 2008. But it’s blossoming once again here in Vancouver, where film and TV crews are almost as ubiquitous as looming Grouse Mountain. … The city’s triple threat of a favorable currency exchange, strong tax credits and established infrastructure may not be sexy, but it is proving highly effective.”

“Despite a strong start to the year at the box office, studios are reducing the number of movies they produce and laying off thousands of employees in response to weakening DVD sales, declining local TV ad revenue and diminishing sources of financing. Adding to the pain, advertisers, which have provided steady work for many actors and jobs for production workers, are making fewer commercials.” On-location filming in L.A. has fallen to its “lowest levels on record.”

“This summer, Channel 4 will broadcast a new series … featuring nude models. The show, provisionally titled Life Class: Today’s Nude, hopes to promote a return to elementary skills of drawing and painting, and spark a revival of more traditional, figurative art. Some viewers, no doubt, will not appreciate the chance to study full-frontal male and female nudity at 6pm, three hours before the 9pm watershed.”

“The Tribeca Film Festival, founded eight years ago in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, is again trying to lift the morale of a city in crisis. Organizers, mindful of the U.S. recession, rising New York joblessness and a shorter roster of sponsors, have tried to include more comedies and uplifting stories for the April 22 to May 3 event and maintain free events such as outdoor screenings.”

“As their bag of tricks gets heftier, shouldn’t filmmakers’ ethical burden grow as well? Does having the shock-and-awe tools for depicting mass destruction for mass distraction mean that we should use them?”

“Movies have been a source of inspiration for game developers since the early 1980s when the likes of “Ghostbusters” and “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” descended on the Atari 2600. Nowadays, with graphic technologies constantly evolving, replicating film imagery has become easier — even with the games based on those graphically lush Disney-Pixar films.”

“There is nothing new in the use of brutal sarcasm and ad hominems to attack your enemies. What Denby laments is the way technology has empowered the snarky critic to take shots at the powerful and influential, allowing the democratization of published cruelty.”