Category: media

Robinson Meyer: “After all, there’s been no shortage of chances over the last decade to note How Twitter Has Changed Things. Infinite comparisons can be drawn between Twitter and any other social network. … It also doesn’t seem worth dwelling on Twitter’s shortcomings. (For that, I can wait for earnings day.) Instead, it’s worth seeing Twitter not just as a 10-year-old social network, but as a product of its time.”

“The drive to exploit audience interests in comic strips, magic lantern shows, vaudeville, popular songs, and other films and then to replicate those successful formulas over and over until they cease to make money is foundational to the origins and success of filmmaking worldwide.”

“ITV admitted the speaker’s accent had meant the word had not been ‘understood’ prior to broadcast.”

“Eventually, Cheadle persuaded the Davis family to let him bring in screenwriter Steven Baigelman to help retool the script into something more palatable to foreign-sales teams, which meant writing in a role for a white co-star.”

“There are three things we know about the movies. One: Hollywood will franchise anything if it made money. Two: Hollywood does not like new things. New is scary—new writers, female directors, black directors, scripts, ad infinitum. Three (and this is possibly the most important): Remakes and sequels are never very good.”

“In 1979, HBO hired her to launch its documentaries division. Ms. Nevins remembers having to look up what ‘cable television’ meant (HBO had started just seven years earlier). And, she adds, ‘I didn’t even know what documentary was. I thought documentary was about Hitler.'”

“The creation of live sound effects is often referred to as Foley, after the Hollywood sound recordist who pioneered the techniques in the 1920s. Without it, the clean audio of voices would be a boring world for the listener, and Foley devices continue to be used in radio drama today.”

“The meaning of the verdict will not be clear for some time. But the perception that a Manhattan media company, noted for its wry tone and its insistence that nearly any topic is fair game, was brought low by a celebrity fighting for privacy is most likely to resonate widely across the industry.”

“Real spies know that world is make-believe. Still, when they’re done lurking in shadows – or typing away in their cubicles, more likely – they often come home and turn on the show … Spies recognize that the show exaggerates, but they also mostly praise the ways in which it rings true – and even the ways it doesn’t.”

“Animated films still offer the largest risk/reward equation in the movie business. It’s the most profitable movie genre, averaging a 36 per cent return over the past decade, according to analysis by SNL Kagan. Science fiction and fantasy films, with a 26 per cent profit margin, took a distant second place, while dramas and comedies barely broke even. Yet animation is the most expensive genre.”