Jenna Wortham and Kimberly Drew: “With social platforms, there is newly shared culture, and in effect, shared history, but it is one that is vulnerable to a loss as arbitrary as a server migration or company sale. … In 2015, we set out to create our own analog archive of contemporary Black life by Black people and for Black people. … The ephemerality of social media terrified us, and as such, inspired us.” – The New York Times Magazine
Tag: 10.07.20
New Netflix Project: ‘Made By Africa, Watched By the World’
“Mixing new, original content with older African classics that have not previously been streamed elsewhere, this initiative … creates a path for stories that specifically address different slices of the African experience to see the light of day and reach a wider audience. Considering that there’s a growing feeling among Africans that inaccurate representation on screen is a given, that’s a good thing for everyone.” – The Guardian
Is Netflix Too Quick To Cancel Series?
Exactly how Netflix makes the call on what to renew or not is something of a mystery – it never releases ratings or viewer figures that would illuminate its decisions. Instead, everything is driven by top-secret data. Netflix notoriously number-crunches every bit of viewer interaction – what you watch, when you watch it, the device you watch it on (TV, PC, phone, tablet, smart microwave, whatever), how many episodes you watch in a row; even when you pause and for how long. It then uses this to inform production choices.- The Guardian
How Can Choirs Can Sing Together Again COVID-Safely? In Cars, Drive-In Movie-Style
“It started with David Newman, a baritone on the voice faculty of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. In May, after a widely discussed web conference on the dangers of singing, Mr. Newman set up a sound system with four wireless microphones, an old-school analog mixer and an amplifier. Several singers gathered in their cars on his street, and he conducted them from his driveway. It worked.” – The New York Times
V&A Preparing To Return Items Looted After Ethiopian Battle
“The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has started talks with the Ethiopian embassy over returning looted treasures in its collections, including a gold crown and royal wedding dress, … plundered after the 1868 capture of Maqdala.” – The Guardian
Two Actors’ Unions Fight For Jurisdiction Over Streamed Theater
“Actors’ Equity Association [theater] is accusing SAG-AFTRA [film, television and radio] of raiding its turf and undercutting its contracts by negotiating lower-paying deals with theaters for streaming productions. SAG-AFTRA, in turn, says that work made for broadcast has always been its domain, and that it has offered to work with Equity through the pandemic but that the stage union has refused all efforts at compromise.” – The New York Times
The Movie Problem: No Blockbusters, No Business
The top 50 best-performing films in the UK box office take nearly 90% of the total box office. With more than 700 films released every year, that leaves little space for smaller, foreign language and independent films. Cinemas have high fixed costs and need a certain number of hit films to keep afloat. – The Conversation
Why India’s Government Is Trying To Demonize Bollywood
If you had switched on news television in India in the past two months, you would have found a country obsessed with a singular subject: the taming of Bollywood, supposedly a wild, drug-addled place where horrible things happen to outsiders; India’s Gomorrah, infested with vile liberals and Muslims. This hysterical campaign of vilification and the persecution of numerous actors is an attempt to distract people from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s failure to handle the coronavirus pandemic and a sinking economy. – The New York Times
Viability
Arts and culture organizations that can learn to grow their audiences and leverage these connections into long-term financial stability may learn that a successful pivot is often one that turns toward their neighbors. – Doug Borwick
Deplorable in Baltimore: Careening Down the Slippery Slope of Collection Monetization
Call me Cassandra. The “slippery slope” of monetizing museum collections, which I previously prophesied would get more dangerous under the Association of Art Museum Directors’ temporarily relaxed guidelines, has just been greased. – Lee Rosenbaum