Amateur Video Maker Scores TV Deal

An amateur 20-year-old who posted homemade videos to YouTube was signed to a network production deal last week. “Major TV studios have also started trolling YouTube and similar destinations for the next generation of acting and directing talent. In the process, the Web is offering the kind of instant connection to Hollywood that countless denizens of public-access talk shows have craved and seldom received.”

Classical Music Groups Being Pushed Out Of Lauderdale?

Fort Lauderdale music groups say they’re feeling a scheduling squeeze from the Broward County Performing Arts Center because of touring Broadway shows. “Officials have privately complained for years that the Broward Center’s emphasis on reserving large blocks for touring Broadway shows has made scheduling their performances increasingly difficult.” With the imminent opening of the Miami Performing Arts Center, the groups may be looking at other options.

Revelation: 350 Getty Artifacts In Question

Three hundred and fifty artifacts worth $100 million in the Getty Museum have been identified as having questionable provenance. “The newly identified objects include many of the most prestigious and striking exhibits at the trust’s recently reopened Getty Villa, the only museum in the US dedicated to ancient art. Thirty-five of the museum’s catalogue of 104 “masterpieces” feature on the new list of disputed artefacts. They include a sculpture of two griffins, a marble and limestone sculpture of the Greek goddess Aphrodite and a bronze known as Victorious Youth, which is displayed in its own temperature-controlled room.”