The intention is to produce rich data that can measure the details of an individual's face. Aralia will leverage 3-D face recognition technology that the university is already developing. When you sit in the audience of a theater with their system, you'll be illuminated with an infra-red beam, and three or more cameras will continually monitor the crowd....This totally gives me the heebie-jeebies. Am I the only one?
... Here's a new Hollywood riddle: what's the difference between a marketing head and a studio head? Answer: It doesn't matter, as long as the marketing head is a whiz kid who believes in your movie.I'm a big fan of Lynda Obst - her book "Hello, He Lied" deserves a spot on all of our bookshelves - and she's been around long enough to have a great view of Hollywood and how it's changed. She shares some of her wisdom here, and while it's not breaking new ground, Obst's article is clear, concise, unbiased, and definitely worth the read.
The iPhone and iPad are very successful, but, with all due respect to the prophetic Steve Jobs, I don't see Apple giving them away. It's very simple. Shows like "30 Rock" and "Lost" and "The Office" are expensive to produce. Plus these "hits" cover the costs of all the misses. If viewers want to continue to see quality content like that, then we have to find a way to keep it profitable. Otherwise, we'll all be watching clips of a sneezing panda -- which, by the way, were adorable.Levitan opinions make perfect sense on all points. As someone who "cut the cord" and gets all of my television from the Internet, I'm in favor of keeping Hulu and similar sites free. As someone who may have content on these types of sites someday, I'm also in favor of making sure creators are paid and audiences are counted. What's the middle ground?
This U.S. style of marketing is set to take off in shows produced in the U.K. and continental Europe as well, thanks to a recent change in the rules governing the mix of advertising and content in home-grown television programs. ... A recent change to European Union law says editorial and advertising can now be mixed, but they must be distinct from one another, and EU members are given room to write their own rules. While keen to allow commercial broadcasters access to a new source of revenue, the EU authorities also want to ensure viewers know when they are being sold to.I'm sure Europe will soon thank us for another fantastic "import." Put it on the list with McDonald's and Wal-Mart.
We feel like we’re under such a microscope these days. And I think there’s a rush to judgment from all of us. (People said) “‘Robin Hood’ is a disaster.” Robin Hood’s done $300 million. To me that’s a good start. You know, sometimes I get the matinee figures at 9 a.m. on Friday, and I myself am guilty of saying ‘Oh my God, we’re in trouble.’ Five theatres in New York! It’s just not always representative of what’s gonna happen. ...This interview is quite long, but definitely worth the read. She's saying lots of the things we want to hear, about making better movies, so let's just hope she really means it.
To be fair to all of us, nobody sets out to make a crappy movie. Nobody says, "Let’s make this one bad." You’re always trying to make it good. Now, sometimes you succeed in making it good, sometimes you really succeed at making it great, and sometimes you massively fail and make a bad movie. ... Which you still have to sell. But it wasn’t as if he thought, "Oh, this one doesn’t have to work."
What is the consequence of this disconnect between millennials - those aged 18 to 29 - and today's American indie cinema? As New York Times critic Manohla Dargis wrote in a piece that picked up on Hope's blog, "Any future alternative film culture will depend on the cultivation of younger patrons," she wrote. Not only that, but this is a demographic, she added, "who are used to receiving much if not all of their entertainment at home and on handheld devices."This article points out that people tend to get more interested in art house films as they get older, but I do believe the lack of indies interesting to young adults is an issue that will probably only get grow if we aren't cognizant of it. Just something to think about.
This feels like it’s been the year of submission. For the first time in a long time, movies feel purely temporary, transitory and overcompensating with unprecedented avalanches of hype — a viral incursion here, a shadowy publicity still there, cynically manufactured and yielding nothing to show for our engagement. Conversely, if this really is the new golden age of television, it’s perhaps because only serialized TV can realistically pay off the deep investment we’ve made in its ideas, its romance and its spirit.Is there a way out of this cycle of hype? Huge production budgets = the need for huge box office = huge marketing efforts = huge overall budgets = the need for huge box office. It's worrisome, I'm not going to lie.
Look for the media insiders to discuss what Comcast Corp. will do with NBC Universal and its chief executive, Jeff Zucker, if regulators bless its bid to control the company. (The deal was negotiated in part at the conference last year. Mr. Zucker, a regular attendee, is expected to be there this week.) The fate of ABC is also likely to be a topic of conversation. Disney denied rumors that it has considered selling ABC, but chatter persists. With more moguls putting their content behind a paywall, expect talk about the wisdom of a subscription model for newspapers and TV shows and the iPad.While I'm sure it would be great to attend this conference, I wonder about the wisdom of having basically the same group of highly elite media leaders year after year. If there's one thing many of us know, it's that the people at the top aren't exactly in touch with the real world. Discussing only amongst themselves just perpetuates that problem.
The techies and their deal-makers are likely to be brainstorming more potential combinations and content-swapping deals between AOL Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., as all three plot ways to compete with ever-expanding Google. The escalating war between Google and Apple Inc. is another likely topic of conversation. Guests shouldn't expect an onsite showdown. While some Googlers are expected to attend, Apple CEO Steve Jobs isn't.
Honestly, I saw the ad for the movie and it didn't look bad. However, I don't like Tom Cruise and won't pay one red cent to see another one of his films. When I was sitting in a rowdy theater on the opening night of SATC 2, the audience fell SILENT when Tom Cruise came on the screen. I would have watched this film if it had starred, say, Ralph Macchio or Keanu Reeves. Anyone but Tom Cruise.
It's why Hollywood loves to play the blame game. In a business where there are no infallible filmmakers, where audiences are perpetually fickle, blowing hot and cold over every fresh new actor or hot new trend, the only constant is that our movies are our most enigmatic consumer product of all, their appeal a perpetual mystery.I haven't seen the movie, so I can't speak authoritatively on why the film didn't perform, but after reading the article, I'm feeling bummed about the fact that this could easily be leveraged by the studios to justify making even more LCD films (Lowest Common Denominator). And that's not a compliment.
