Category: media

Is Netflix Going To Work As A Movie Studio?

It’s like Lifetime! Or Hallmark! But wait, it’s got prestige movies! And hey, there are documentaries! And animated movie! And … whoa, Netflix, what are you even doing? A lot. “The number of annual Netflix film releases climbs to about 90. To compare, Universal, one of Hollywood’s most prolific traditional studios, releases roughly 30 movies a year.” – The New York Times

How Did Peter Jackson Make 100-Year-Old Black And White WWI Footage Look New?

The director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was given about 100 hours of film from the time period – some of it sped up, some of it in terrible disrepair, all of it black and white. First, he and his team restored all of the footage. Then, they “retimed the footage, speeding up the frame rate, adding extra frames digitally and smoothing out the movement.” – The New York Times

Is The Push To Watch ‘Roma’ In Movie Theatres Just A Snotty Anti-TV Move?

Critics have taken the idea on as a crusade, but there are real differences between big and smaller screens. “The film’s crystalline images (captured with the ultra-high-definition Alexa 65 camera) and elaborate sound design [are] key to the film’s success—and … with those elements diminished by the transition to the smaller screen, Cuarón’s deep-focus shots and leisurely pans might prove more soporific than engrossing.”  – Slate

The Power Couple At The Top Of British Indie Films

One Brit and one American reinvented the British indie, and have found massive cross-Atlantic success with everything from The Crying Game to Carol to Collette. And they don’t care for sequels. Elizabeth Karlsen: “Chasing the newest thing can actually be a producer’s downfall. And there is an economic imperative that can set in and make you try to turn movie-making into a science: something it constantly resists.” – The Observer (UK)

Barry Jenkins Says He Specifically Made ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ For A Black Audience

And what about white audiences? He isn’t worried about cultural tourism. “If the film was engineered expressly for white people to experience black pain, then I would feel a certain kind of way. … Being the creator of the piece, I know that’s not my intent. Having read the novel, I feel like that wasn’t Mr. Baldwin’s intent. I think because of that, I don’t feel any kind of way about the experience of a shared audience experiencing the work.”  – HuffPost

Public Radio’s Smaller Stations Are Fading Away, And We’ll All Lose If They Disappear

“The vast majority of assets and growth lie with a relative few of the largest stations. Every year, the weakest go dark, or they are absorbed. … Or their licenses are spun off for cash. … If this continues, the consequences are profound. So how shall we think about this?” Spokane Public Radio general manager Cary Boyce offers three possibilities. — Current

Public Radio And TV Must Reimagine Themselves Or ‘Lose Their Reason To Exist’: Outgoing CPB Board Member

Howard Husock, an executive at the Manhattan Institute, points out the ways that the media landscape has been transformed since the passage of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act, not least the fact that non-public television is no longer a “vast wasteland” and public radio is no longer an afterthought to television. — Current