Category: media

According to Nielsen, play time was up by 45 percent during the last week of March, while worldwide sales were up at least 44 percent. – FiveThirtyEight

Olivia Jackson was gravely injured on a Resident Evil set in South Africa in 2015. But who should pay?. “Jackson’s ordeal highlights the vulnerabilities of performers on sets, especially on international productions, where it can be challenging to recover damages for injuries. Although film and TV-related fatalities have declined since the 1980s and 1990s, the number of catastrophic injuries has increased in recent years as production has expanded globally.” – Los Angeles Times

Malls and other retail establishments reopened in the state as well. Movie theatres that reopened were showing older-run movies for $5. In one San Antonio theatre, “in an upscale shopping center called the Rim, business was steady — low for a Saturday in May, but higher than what might be expected in a state still grappling with a coronavirus outbreak that has killed nearly 900 people, 48 of them in Bexar County, which includes San Antonio.” – The New York Times

“There’s nothing like the Xanadu of a giant screen, air conditioning, darkness, Milk Duds and a big Hollywood movie in a packed theater” – which means that, right now, there’s a very well-lit, beautiful, empty nothing. – Los Angeles Times

There’s literally nothing to report for the box office this week of 2020, so why not go back in history and see what was going on 98 years ago, during the first year of box office reporting? “The surprise of the week came at Clune’s, where The Isle of Zorda, at a scale of 25 cents for matinees and 35 at night, got better than $7,000 at a house that usually does around $3,500. The feature is being held over, although this week business is falling below that done last week.” – Slate

“It is a documentary not about the coronavirus, but about the intimate experience of the confinement that is obviously transformed into a film with dramatic, comical moments, especially touched by introspection, waiting, fear at times. There is more music and silence than dialogue.” And there are celebrities, but the director wants them to be a surprise. – El País

The reactions of AMC and other chains to NBCUniversal’s touting of a streaming-only release of the movie Trolls: World Tour is head-shakingingly weird. Almost everyone is stuck at home – and almost no one has access to movie theatres (drive-ins excepted). “If there were ever a time not to make proclamations about the future of theatrical distribution, it’s now. Which is not to say that our re-emergence into the world of movies, whatever form that takes, won’t have its share of problems, because some of the old problems will follow us.” – Time

Intimacy comes from much more than the sound design for sex scenes, intense though they may be in Hulu’s 12-part Normal People. The music throughout the series, as with other audio queues, is meant to react along with audiences, not lead them. And then there are the physically intimate scenes: “That means adding a swallow, a breath, a stomach gurgle or the ruffle of material. … When they have their first kiss, you want the world to disappear. You want the audience to lean in.” – Variety

And that trust took him to some weird places in Lorrain’s newest movie, Ema. Bernal: “All films are mysteries; you don’t know how they’re going end up . . . but this one had mystery as its kind of guiding mantra. We didn’t know the scenes from day to day. We only knew them the night before or right on the day. We just went for the journey the Pablo had described to us and that was also changing a lot. I didn’t know what to expect.” – Irish Times

Iceland has tested its population widely for virus, and has had few cases so it could be safe for shooting. The country, with its sparsely populated but spacious North Atlantic geography, advanced filming infrastructure, production incentives and experienced crews, had long been an attractive shooting location. – Los Angeles Times