Category: media

“A New York-based company is trying to take art-house movies to small cities around the country by relying on digital projection. The company, Emerging Pictures, has sent computer hard drives to theaters in five cities to coincide with the opening on April 1 of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, N.C. The hard drives, which can be connected to inexpensive digital projectors, contain 10 digital films from the documentary festival.”

Your trip to the local multiplex to check out the big new Hollywood blockbuster may soon include an element you hadn’t bargained for: a bag search and pat-down to insure that you aren’t carrying any video cameras or camera phones that could be used to illegally record the film for later distribution. In-theater searches aren’t exactly a great PR move for the industry, but officials insist that they may be the only way to stem the tide of pirated films.

The U.S. Justice Department has announced that it will form a task force to look into the issue of illegal content piracy (online song-swapping, etc.,) and that the task force will advise the attorney general on how the department should be dealing with the problem. “The announcement took place on the same day that a House judiciary subcommittee unanimously approved a bill that would punish file swappers with up to three years in jail for first offenses, and up to six for repeat offenses.”

The state-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation has been doing some polling of its viewers. “The results have been startling. According to the research, the ABC’s adoption of commercial advertising would receive majority support from viewers. One December 2003 focus poll showed that 72 per cent of viewers approve of introducing advertising to the ABC. Of that percentage, 54 per cent stated a strong preference for the ABC to take greater responsibility for generating its own funding.”

What’s wrong with movies today? They’ve been kidnapped by special effects, writes Denis Dutton. “Producers are stuck in the upward spiral of an endless special-effects arms race, with demands for bigger explosions, uglier villains, more frenzied, realistic violence, louder noises and ever-expanding battle scenes. A computer-generated crowd, according to the Hollywood rule, must not be smaller than the crowds in last month’s releases.” So what about plot? Character? Acting, anyone?

The last time that Americans and their government got their knickers in a twist over supposedly “obscene” content on television, the result of the brouhaha was the much-heralded V-Chip, which was mandated for all new TV sets, and which provided concerned parents with a way to prevent their children from viewing inappropriate programming, even when unsupervised. But, in what could be seen as a measure of just how much ordinary Americans actually care about this issue, it turns out that virtually no one uses their V-chip, and many parents don’t even know (or care) how to turn it on. So the government has launched a new ad campaign to tell viewers all about it.

France’s recording industry (which goes by the snappy acronym SNEP) has announced that it will follow the lead of the American and British industries and begin suing consumers who illegally download and share music online. In recent days, an international recording federation sued 247 people in Italy, Germany, Canada, and Denmark, and the U.S.-based RIAA has sued more than a thousand file-swappers over the past year. The decision by French companies to jump into the fray is significant, because “French law does not offer the same levels of protection to copyright holders as British and American laws afford.”

It’s been quite a while since Paramount Pictures decided to cede the blockbuster ground to other Hollywood studios, and to content itself with a product comprising something less than top-flight material and A-list stars. But “after many years of putting out formulaic, B-grade thrillers fueled by a philosophy of sticking to mid-range budgets and lesser-known stars, Paramount is on a mission to turn things around,” and they’re putting out the word that they’re not afraid to spend whatever it takes.

“Television viewers worldwide spent 15 minutes more per day glued to their screens in 2003 than in the previous year, bringing global average viewing time to three hours and 39 minutes daily, according to figures released today. Based on eight hours of sleep, that means the average viewer spends almost a quarter of their waking hours in front of the TV – and maybe a few of the sleeping ones as well.”

Gay culture is hip on TV, where it’s become a popular part of mainstream TV fare. Why? “A number of factors have coalesced to fuel the mainstream media’s appetite for all things fabulous. Not least the fact that gay culture is frequently viewed as more trend-savvy, fashion-forward and rampantly creative than the rather dreary heterosexual one – which, quite frankly, is screaming out for a good zhuzhing.”