Category: media

“Nowadays, when somebody says, ‘I’ve just seen a movie,’ we don’t necessarily know whether the speaker saw it in a theater or on a mobile phone, alone or with a thousand other people, on celluloid or on a disc. These aren’t really the same experiences, even if we choose to call them all The Godfather or Up. And when it comes to distinguishing between film history and advertising, we may be even more confused.”

“Nikki Finke, the sharp-tongued Hollywood blogger, is having her payday. Her Web site, Deadline Hollywood Daily, has been acquired by the Mail.com Media Corporation for an undisclosed amount.” That amount is rumored to be well over $1 million, not including continuing payment for Finke’s services as the site’s editor.

“Filming on the Chinese-language film San Qiang Pai An Jing Qi – which roughly translates as ‘The Stunning Case of the Three Gun Shots’ – kicked off on June 9.” The project is “the Chinese director’s first film since designing the opening and closing ceremonies of last year’s Beijing Olympics.”

“Organizers of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival made their first programming announcement of the year on Tuesday,” with the programme including North American premieres by 101-year-old Manoel de Oliveira and Alain Resnais. In addition, the TIFF is launching a new sidebar: “City to City. The programme will examine the changing landscape of one featured metropolis each year by showcasing films from and about the chosen city. … Tel Aviv, which is celebrating its 100th birthday in 2009, was selected for the inaugural edition.”

“Many bloggers have accepted perks such as free laptops, trips to Europe, $500 gift cards or even thousands of dollars for a 200-word post. … The practice has grown to the degree that the Federal Trade Commission is paying attention. New guidelines, expected to be approved late this summer with possible modifications, would clarify that the agency can go after bloggers — as well as the companies that compensate them — for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts of interest.”

The flowering of Iranian cinema in the 1990s was itself evidence of a cultural and political thaw, a tentative premonition of the current demand for change.

“Individual films will be made available in multiple ways, either consecutively or all at the same time. (Just because a film is available free on SnagFilms or Hulu, it doesn’t follow that no one wants the convenience of renting it from iTunes or Amazon.) In fact, the best sites here accept Internet permeability as a given, and operate on the principle that a rising tide lifts all boats.

It should be possible to show the London Olympics “every single day in 3D on every screen in the country. 3D sport, said Lord Puttnam, could be a “real game changer” that could put cinemas “at the heart of digital Britain”.

“While the industry has been abuzz during recent weeks about consolidation in the agency business, less discussed is the effect these changes are having on a management community that has grown exponentially during the past decade but faces the same industrywide slowdown in job opportunities.”

A new report argues that YouTube is “losing far less than the widely cited $470 million per year” and says “the site’s losses this year will be a much more narrow $174.2 million.” So why isn’t Google trumpeting the success? “Any appearance of profits leads to more draconian revenue share demands from partners and additional lawsuits from owners of unlicensed content.”