“The word-of-mouth reactions that take hold there are leveraged by marketing teams and Oscar campaign consultants, and a consensus emerges that underpins the entire awards season. … Multiplied by thousands of bloggers, critics and everyday festivalgoers, one tingle can go from a feeling to an entire business model.” That can’t happen this year, and Ann Hornaday makes the case that this is a very good thing. – The Washington Post
Category: media
Academy Sets Inclusion Requirements For Best Picture Oscar
“In a historic move, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday laid out sweeping eligibility reforms to the best picture category intended to encourage diversity and equitable representation on screen and off, addressing gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity and disability.” – The Guardian
TikTok Holocaust Meme Demonstrates Need For Ethical Remembrance
The TikTok Holocaust trend saw users – for the most part, teenagers – uploading videos of themselves pretending to be Holocaust victims entering heaven. Many were outraged, describing the videos as “trauma porn” or even antisemitic. In contrast, creators stressed their intentions to educate or spread awareness. – The Conversation
New Startup To Deliver Movies To Theatres Through The Cloud
In the U.S., current theatrical distribution is about 50/50 between hard drives and satellite delivery, according to Jason Brenek. He believes cloud-based tech offers a more efficient alternative. The service was developed to support all out-of-home venues, including cinemas, pop-up drive-ins or outdoor arenas. – The Hollywood Reporter
How Much Difference Does Rotten Tomatoes Really Make In A Movie’s Success?
“As recently as a few years ago, the movie-review aggregator was seen as something of an industry bogeyman. But is there a correlation between box office receipts and a high (or low) score on the Tomatometer? We dug deep into the numbers to determine that.” – The Ringer
Women Directors Made Almost Half The Films At This Year’s Venice Festival
“This is an unprecedented percentile which we hope augurs well for a future cinema that is free of any sort of prejudice and discrimination.” – Toronto Star
Report: Global Movie Box Office Down 66 Percent For 2020
For the U.S., the firm’s annual study projects a 65.7 percent decline from $11.4 billion in 2019 to $3.9 billion this year. The firm warned that “the whole cinema ecosystem will be dramatically affected,” with cinema revenue, comprised of box office and cinema advertising (but excluding concession sales in cinemas and movie merchandising), set to contract globally at a 2.4 percent compound annual rate from 2019 to end 2024 with $39.9 billion. – The Hollywood Reporter
New BBC Boss Rules Out Change To Subscription Model
In the old-yet-new-again debate over the licence fee (charges to every UK household that owns a TV) that funds the national broadcaster — and appointed by a Conservative government that doesn’t much like the fee or the BBC itself — incoming director general Tim Davie rejected the option of making the network a cable-style subscription-only offering: “I do not want a subscription BBC that serves the few.” – BBC
The Biggest Problem BBC’s New Chief Has To Solve
It’s funding, of course. Over the long term, it’s probably increasing income from exported BBC programming. But in the near term, it’s what to do about the TV licence fee that funds the whole operation — and getting his decision past “a government that has a big majority, is a bit vengeful and not very strategic.” – Variety
BBC Doesn’t Deliberately Favor Lefty Comedians. It Can’t Find Any Right-Leaning Ones Who Are Funny.
Earlier this week, The Daily Telegraph reported that the incoming BBC director general planned to cancel left-leaning comedy shows because the broadcaster’s comic programming was unfairly biased. However, a BBC insider tells The Guardian that network execs have been pushing for months for more balance, but “some people aren’t very good. The issue is a shortage of rightwing comics.” – The Guardian