Category: media

2005’s box office was down, but 2006 came roaring back. “Hits like Pirates of the Caribbean helped total sales reach an estimated at $9.42 billion, compared with 2005’s $8.99 billion. Summer takings were particularly strong but the year ended relatively weakly. A rise in ticket prices is partially responsible for the increase but actual attendance figures rose by 3% on the previous year.”

What do the ratings tell us about the popularity of TV shows? Not much, it turns out, if you check in with websites where the rabid fans cluster…

Time was, movie musicals were big business. Now, every one has to reinvent the form. Like the new Dreamgirls.”By embracing the theatricality I help people relax into the idea that singing is a natural extension of drama – that it just has to come out when the characters’ feelings reach a fever pitch.”

“If you really are interested in who has their fingers on the pulse of Oscar voters, you need to travel to north Texas, and canvas the 35 members of the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association. In the past five years, they correctly foretold the best picture winner four times — missing only “Crash,” a movie everybody underestimated.”

People look different on high definition TV. “The grain structure of film allows a softness that HD video tends not to have, posing more challenges, especially when it comes to capturing female faces. We seem not to care about seeing men in a rougher, more edgier way,” he explains, “whereas females, we’re used to seeing them in a softer, more appealing way. So there’s a little more filtration needed, and you have to approach it from a different standpoint.”

Veering too far off the classic movie story formula is thought to reduce the wide appeal of a film. But “there sure seem to be a lot of movies out this fall – big-budget, high-profile Hollywood productions, as well as smaller art films – that toy with or completely embrace these ‘audience-eliminating’ styles.”

British movies are having a great run right now. “Why has this happened, and why now? It’s not immediately apparent. Overwhelmingly, British films are still financed by a combination of tax and lottery money via the UK Film Council or by two broadcasters, BBC Films and Film Four. Yet significantly all these bodies are on a winning streak at present.”

Subtitles are back in at American movie theatres. “Historically, Hollywood has shunned subtitles. It assumed most moviegoers wouldn’t sit still for dialogue that had to be translated onscreen; subtitles were left to foreign films with limited appeal to smaller, more upscale audiences. But then films like 2000’s sumptuous martial arts movie ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ — which grossed a whopping $128.1 million domestically — proved that you could have your subtitles and a broad-based audience, too. This year has seen a proliferation of subtitled fare.”

The actors union ACTRA, which represents performers in movie and TV productions, is objecting to producers’ offers of :wage increases and the use of performances on the internet. ACTRA characterized as outrageous the producers’ offer of wage increases of zero per cent, zero per cent and 1 per cent for people working on Canadian productions. The union also said the producers maintained contract requirements that amount to demanding work from Canadian performers on the Internet for free.”

The broadcaster had hoped for a generous boost in the fee, but the British government decided otherwise. “The corporation had sought increases above inflation to pay for investment in programmes, the digital switchover and the relocation of key departments to the north-west. But the sums revealed last night are far below the level hoped for.”