Well, Disney is sure interested. The behemoth would “buy 21st Century Fox’s movie studio, television production arm, some cable channels and international television operations.”
Category: media
At HBO’s ‘Insecure,’ The Lighting Always Has To Be Right
The series’ director of photography says that “By design, the first film stocks were created for Caucasian skin,” and that she wants to make sure, while shooting “Insecure,” to prioritize lighting for the mostly African American cast.
The News Business Is Collapsing In Front Of Us
“Virtually every news organization in America has seen its audience decline (and in some cases crater) since the record numbers of last winter. Some blame the Google and Facebook algorithms (could real news getting caught up in the fight against the fake stuff?). Others speculate that readers and viewers are simply tiring of the 24/7 onslaught of crazy. Either way, declining audience equals declining advertising revenue, and we know what that means.”
This Year’s Sundance Festival Sits At A Cultural Crossroads
“If the festival’s organizers have found themselves unexpectedly responding to cultural shifts, filmmakers too have seen their work take on new and expanded meaning in the face of the current political environment.”
Why Some Bad Movies Become Cult Classics (And Others Just Don’t)
“Not all bad movies are entertaining. To be worthwhile, they require a sense that someone was actually trying. … Making a purposefully lousy movie is like wearing a Female Body Inspector T-shirt: You might get a cheap laugh, but ultimately, you’re just a guy with questionable taste.”
Donor Gives Millions To Help Public Radio ‘Disrupt Itself’
“All across the media world, organizations continue to grapple with ‘digital disruption.’ … Which is why the Jerome L. Greene Foundation’s $10 million gift this month to New York Public Radio (NYPR), home to WNYC and WQXR, is so interesting.” Mike Scutari looks at how this donation, along with several others from the Greene Foundation over the past decade, has funded NYPR’s “self-disruption” – that is, its transformation into a “multi-platform journalism service.”
The News Media Business Is In Complete Collapse. What To Do?
“There are at least three major trends contributing to this dismal media moment. They all point to the same solution, and it’s something everyone in journalism should know by now: News publishers have to get better at making money outside of advertising.”
The Internet As We’ve Known It Is Dying
“A vibrant network doesn’t die all at once. It takes time and neglect; it grows weaker by the day, but imperceptibly, so that one day we are living in a digital world controlled by giants and we come to regard the whole thing as normal. It’s not normal. It wasn’t always this way. The internet doesn’t have to be a corporate playground. That’s just the path we’ve chosen.”
TV Comedies Were Taking On Sexual Harassment Months Before ‘The Weinstein Effect’
“Just as Louis C.K. used his stand-up specials and FX show, Louie, to recast his own sexual misconduct as transgressive comedy, his peers – multi-hyphenate TV stars like [Aziz] Ansari, Tig Notaro and Lena Dunham – have used their own platforms to mine the experience of working with guys like him, and dig into issues like how to act on intractable rumors, the social discomfort of taking a stand, and the problem with well-meaning male allies.”
The Trouble With Thinking We’re In A “Golden Age” Of TV
“Television shows function like businesses—they have huge payrolls, with hundreds of people doing hundreds of tasks to make even the most banal sitcom a reality. During the “Golden Age,” the conversation around who made television tended to boil down to one person—the showrunner—and in many ways, we are still living with that legacy. We evaluate television creators as artists, but not often as bosses, which is exactly what most of them are.”