Make-Believe is a new podcast company in Chicago, and is, as Jeremy McCarter likes to put it, a podcast that’s “one part live theater, one part TV production, one part social science… Chicago is multiple cities. The discourse becomes more authentic when you can bridge — let’s call it what it is — segregation.” – The New York Times
Category: media
New European Internet Content Law Will Be A Disaster For The Internet
“Taken together, these two rules will subject huge swaths of online expression to interception and arbitrary censorship, and give the largest news companies in Europe the power to decide who can discuss and criticise their reporting, and undermining public-interest, open-access journalism.” – Electronic Frontier Foundation
Will The Oscars Ceremony Really Be Better Off Without A Host?
Kyle Buchanan: “One of the academy’s oft-stated priorities is to trim the telecast to a slim three hours, and with no monologue nor a host to keep cutting back to, the proceedings should at least be shorter. But will they be better? … I think we’re still underestimating the power a host has to shape the telecast in ways both noticeable and not.” — The New York Times
What We Gain And What We Lose With Peter Jackson’s Colorized World War One Footage
“Jackson asserts, reasonably, that if the cameramen of the Great War could have shot in color with sound, they would have. But such choices are trickier historically than they may seem. Most people looking at black-and-white footage of the war while it was going on never thought, Oh, if only this were in color, with sound! Any more than looking at it with color and sound now, we say, ‘Oh, but if only you could smell it!'” — The New Yorker
Russian Filmmaker, Facing Censors And Vigilantes, Puts Comedy On YouTube Instead Of Cinema Screens
When word got around that Aleksey Krasovskiy’s Holiday was a comedy about the Siege of Leningrad, the outrage came thick and fast. So did the threats, all from people who hadn’t seen the movie. So he gave up on distribution and put the film online — where viewers understood just what he was up to. — The New York Times
Screen Actors Guild Accuses Academy Of ‘Intimidation’ Over Oscars
In a statement, SAG-AFTRA [the actors’ union] has claimed that an ‘extraordinary and unwarranted pressure’ is being placed on their members” — that is, that the Academy won’t invite any actor who presents a trophy at the SAG Awards to be a presenter at the Oscars. — The Guardian
Podcasters In Search Of A Business Model
Audiences for podcasts are growing quickly. And the number of podcasts is also exploding. Podcasters are scrambling to find ways to support their work and business models that work.
Is It Really A Good Idea To Demand That Only Gay Actors Play Gay Roles?
Ryan Gilbey points out some of the unintended consequences beyond the usual “it’s called acting for a reason” argument. As one out gay actor put it, “In the current cultural climate I am invited to participate only on the basis of my supposed oppression.” — The Guardian
The U.S. Poet Laureate Has A Podcast, And It’s Coming To Public Radio
Tracy K. Smith, author of Life on Mars and Wade in the Water, started a podcast in November. Now it’s moving up the podcast chain to the motherlode of podcasting success, public radio. – The New York Times
An Oscar Contender Stirs Guilt – And Soul-Searching – In Mexico’s Middle Class
Roma depicts the relationship of a woman doing housekeeping and nanny work to the family for which she’s working. They like her a lot, but they treat her with an off-handed sense of ownership that may seem appalling to viewers. The film “has also prompted serious soul-searching about the plight of poorly paid and often-unprotected domestic workers in Mexico, where, nearly five decades after the period depicted in the film, inequality remains rife, racism stubbornly persists and social mobility seems to have stagnated.” – The Observer (UK)