Well, it was bound to happen. After almost five years of covering the entertainment world, we’re ending publication of Film News Briefs today as we join forces with Studio System News starting tomorrow. Actually, to be fair, this little newsletter began in 2007, but I didn’t take over as editor until August of 2008, which is how I mark the time.

You may notice that, after a couple hundred of these weekly editorials in which the first person plural was used (or, as I like to call it, “The Royal We”), I’ve switched to the singular for this last FNB post. I’m no longer speaking on behalf of a publication, but rather as a proud departing editor moving on to other, hopefully greener, pastures, who wants to thank some people, pay some proper respects, and maybe possibly be funny in the process. We’ll see how that last one goes, I guess.

This whole thing began as an assistant’s attempts to summarize the morning news for her boss. Jessica Kantor started FNB as a service to then-honcho Harvey Weinstein, then tried to branch out with it, which eventually led her to me. I came on board the middle of that aforementioned August, and have been running this bake sale ever since. Jess was a pleasure to work with and I can’t thank her enough for bringing me on board to help turn her little brainstorm into something people actively looked forward to reading every morning.

Likewise, we wouldn’t have made it this far without Stephan Paternot, who came in with some much needed financing when we overhauled the site and rebooted it back in the summer of 2009. Steph became the operation’s publisher, on the one hand, and a good friend on the other. Working with him as closely as I have the past few years has taught me a lot and I value that attained wisdom highly.

Aggregating the news every day is a pretty arduous task, and for a long time I had to do it alone. It becomes drudgery after a while, which is why I eventually brought in some interns. People came and went, but one of my first ones, Cynthia Almanzar, stayed, as did a later arrival, Andrew Hurley. Both were promoted over time (Cynthia ends as a senior editor, Andrew as an associate editor), and each has been invaluable both to me and to the operation. Just as I couldn’t do this without Stephan, neither could I do it without Cynthia and Andrew.

It should also be noted here that their work is even more impressive when you consider that English is not the first language of either one. Cynthia hails from the Dominican Republic, while Andrew is, of course, from Wales.

(Believe me, if you had ever read any early drafts of the otherwise wonderful op-eds Andrew has written, filled with creative spelling and what appears to be a toddler’s understanding of basic punctuation, you’d find that joke a whole lot funnier. In fact, I’m pretty sure that sound you just heard is Andrew spitting up coffee on to his computer terminal and cackling like a hyena.)

Almost from the start, I wanted FNB to have a voice of its own, but because of the newsletter’s structure, I could really only do that in the headlines. That’s why I got so cutesy with them, which alternately served to entertain and annoy people over the years. While I often did it to entertain myself while putting the daily digest together, I have to admit I was also doing it to get laughs out of a friend to whom I occasionally shouted out directly. We see no harm now in telling you that Henry Jones is one of the most talented writers we know, and also one of the funniest,  and he forced me to bring my A game every single day.

One of the great things about this job is that it’s provided me with the opportunity to meet some amazing people, who have not only become colleagues, but friends. The two who stand out are columnist Catherine Clinch (more about her in a moment), and Jason Scoggins, who provides one of the terrific-er services in this business, The Scoggins Report. I’ll say it one last time: subscribe. I do, and it’s totally worth it.

There’s someone else I need to mention, someone without whom I could not have done this: you. It has been an honor and a privilege to be in your in-box every morning, as well as having had the opportunity to correspond with so many of you, who helped me shape the way we do this thing. I always listened eagerly, and appreciated anyone who ever took the time to reach out.

While this is the last official editorial from FNB, it’s not the last time you’ll be hearing from either me or Catherine. Both of us will continue to write for SSN. I’ll be appearing every other Monday for the foreseeable future, but instead of being the voice of an entire publication, I’m now just going to be the voice of me, so be forewarned, the opinions I held back up until now are about to be unleashed, just like the Kracken.

It’s interesting to me how my attitude has changed over the years about this. I don’t really consider this journalism, but I did try to bring a certain level of integrity to the proceedings. I’m a screenwriter and indie filmmaker by trade — and yes, with all this extra time I will now have on my hands I am available for hire (and yes, I know how shameless that is, but if you don’t like it, start your own darn news aggregation service) — but I always took my work here very seriously, as I knew it was how a lot of people got a good chunk of their news. It was, and continues to be, a heavy burden I never once took lightly (even when I was being extra snarky).

Which brings us to the end. Well, the end of this ride, and now the beginning of a new one. I hope you will all come with us and keep reading along, now that we’ll be a part of the Studio Systems family. While you’re at it, read my new column when it comes out on Mondays, and write me a line now and then, telling me how much you love or — just as much fun — hate it.

Seriously. Stay in touch. I feel like we’re all friends now, and let’s face it: People who need people? Well, they’re just the luckiest people in the world, aren’t they?

Thank you again. For everything.

Neil Turitz
FNB Editor-in-Chief dysfonction erectile

I’m coming to the FNB farewell bash about Kickstarter late, as usual, but what could be more appropriate as we look to the future than to consider something that represents such a drastic change in the entertainment business? I’ve been hearing about crowdsourcing for a lot longer than the “Veronica Mars” thing because I’m an avid gamer. Now, aside from musician Amanda Palmer (who is so ahead of the game on this that she could just give talks about how to do it for the rest of her life instead of successfully crowdsourcing tours and albums and … pretty much her entire career, and if you don’t know who she is, Google her directly), by far the largest single area that people sink money into on Kickstarter is … videogames.

Over $100 million has been raised for new games since Kickstarter’s inception. As usual with this stuff (Amanda Palmer notwithstanding) gamers are way ahead of the curve on what is possible with crowdsourcing and how to use it most effectively.

Both my dear (can anyone tell I’m getting all sentimental here?) compatriots here at FNB have spoken about the future of films on Kickstarter, but I want to share a slightly different vision.

Let me tell you about Chris Roberts. Chris wrote a very popular game called “Wing Commander” in 1990. Since the assault on the Death Star, Chris has wanted to pilot an X-Wing. An honorable and worthy goal — and one that I wholeheartedly support — and it just got a whole lot closer. Chris grew disillusioned with the games development process in the 90s and took a break from trying to explain his vision to producers with a limited ability to understand said vision, and even more limited purse strings. Upon discovering crowdsourcing, Chris had a radical idea. His recent crowdsourcing campaign made a total of $6.2 million for his new game, “Star Citizen.” The game looks absolutely stunning, but that is because he’s a making a $90 million game, and it looks like a $200 million game. Chris used crowdsourcing to convince investors that there was interest in his product. Investors in the entertainment industry are mainly only interested in the answer to one question, “Will it make money?” It’s why we are still suffering the after effects of that Johnny Depp “Alice In Wonderland” movie with each new shudderingly bad visit to the world of fairy tales. Investors don’t like risks. They like to invest in something they already know has a market. Hence the roman numerals that seem to follow so many movies that hit the theaters, and the shallow rip-offs that make up so much of the rest. Chris Roberts took a total of 6.2 million bucks from an initial quest for two million and said “Proof! Now write the checks and let me do my thing.”

Why hasn’t anyone in the movies considered this approach? Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell should be spending the afternoon at Warner talking about a $60 million dollar budget on a franchise series of three “Veronica Mars” movies, because to be quite frank PEOPLE WANT TO SEE IT! Close to a hundred thousand people just gave them a bunch of free money on the off chance that they ever get to make the thing! You don’t think that buys you some bargaining rights at a lunch that some studio will gladly pay the tab for? All these people do all day, every day, is think about how to put something on film and make money out of it. That is quite literally the job of a movie studio. So the argument that Kickstarter can only fund really small movies is based on a false premise. Kickstarter needn’t be your only source of funding. Investors want to put money into movies people want to see. It really is as simple as that. The day of the $200 million science fiction movie that started as a Kickstarter project and developed into a franchise with video game tie-ins is just around the corner. Crowdsourcing is sometimes as simple as a proof of interest. It’s just the first step.

Andrew@filmnewsbriefs.com

When I was 24-years-old, I came to Hollywood to make movies. I had been through film school and The Directors Guild Training Program. I was a signed client at The William Morris Agency and I’d had my first jobs writing for television. Then life ensued. Television writing assignments came easily while film writing jobs were less available to girls. I consoled myself with the fact that a few times a year I got to speak to 20 million television viewers – a responsibility I took quite seriously. I met a boy. We fell in love. We got married. I got pregnant. Our baby was injured at birth and spent 5-1/2 months in the hospital on life support. When he came home with multiple disabilities, I turned into a SAHM (Stay At Home Mom). I got pregnant again … and again. My life took a left turn and I made lemonade.

Immersion into the world of motherhood turned out to be one of the greatest gifts of my life. While my previous friendships had been established around common professional interests, I learned how to connect in a social environment where the only common interest was that fact that we had kids the same age. My life among the mommies was oddly more satisfying than my life among the writers – and the stories were much more interesting. Not the stories we told our kids – the stories we told each other. So, it came as a bit of a shock when I finally realized that in the thousands of hours of film and television I’d watched with my sons … the mother was always dead. Whether live action or animation, dead mommies had become the cultural norm. If the character of the mother was alive, she was helpless, dysfunctional or, worse yet, the villain.

In an adult equivalent of a temper tantrum, I decided that it was time to take a stand: No More Dead Mommies! I wanted to see on-screen mothers that represented the intelligent, complex, likable woman I’d met on the mommy track. So I gave birth to an idea: write and produce studio-quality G-rated films for families about functional nuclear families. My Peoria-born husband and I had spent years of family road trips accumulating a sense of America beyond the thirty-mile-zone. We knew the audience was out there, waiting for films like this. So we wrote about an abused and abandoned greyhound racing dog that adopts a high school kid who runs track and field. In the end, two loser athletes make each other winners. I knocked on every door in Hollywood – some of them, two or three times. The consensus was that nobody wants to see G-rated films. I spent years searching for independent financing, a process I can only equate to trying to save yourself from being sucked up in quicksand by grabbing hold of a lot of bricks. Ultimately, I had an epiphany: circumvent Hollywood and go straight to the audience through crowdfunding.

By now you’ve heard about the “Veronica Mars” movie project on Kickstarter (my editor has written about it a couple times). They set a goal of $2 million and reached out to their core fans. Two days before the end of their campaign, they have raised more than $5 million and the film has been greenlit by Warner Bros. Conventional wisdom says that’s an anomaly you can’t reproduce. I say it’s an invitation to double down and go even further.

In the next few weeks, I will be launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise $11 million on Indiegogo. Our budget for an all-union production with a studio crew in Los Angeles is $10 million, but there are also fees for Indiegogo and PayPal, so I’ve adjusted for that. Based on the statistical recognition that $25 is the most popular amount contributed, I will need 440,000 people to contribute $25.00 in forty days and forty nights. I know. It’s going to take a miracle. That’s why I’ll be reaching out to the Christian community and the moms across America. I’ll also be reaching out to all of you who have been reading my columns and articles over the years. Two months from now, I will either be a cautionary tale or I’ll be in preproduction. Either way, there will be stories to tell … and none of them will have a dead mommy.

Catherine@nuclearfamilyfilms.com viagra

We’ve been kind of astonished this week seeing the outpouring of affection and reaction to Roger Ebert’s death. Not that he isn’t worthy of it, it’s just a bit of a surprise. The man was a critic. A very good and insightful one, but a critic nonetheless. And now that he’s gone, we think what is most clear is that the discipline has, for all intents and purposes, gone along with him.

Ebert and his late partner, Gene Siskel, brought critique to the masses with their “At The Moves” show. That’s how we got to know them, back in the days before the interwebs and when there were only a few channels. We would tune in to PBS every weekend to watch it, and while we don’t necessarily think it led to our deep and abiding love of movies, it certainly didn’t hurt. What it did do was make us think analytically about film, and allowed us to work briefly as a critic later in life (a sample of our work can be found on the DVD box for “Mean Girls,” which we describe as “viciously funny.” Shame the Pulitzer committee doesn’t hand out awards for cheekiness).

While Ebert was a brilliant writer and, especially after he got sick, an impressive philosopher about life and things, he was also the most relevant critic left standing, and now that he’s gone, we would argue that the art of critique doesn’t really matter all that much anymore.

Think about it. How often do you really go see a movie anymore because someone else liked it? In this age, the awareness of the films coming out is more complete than it ever has been before, and checking out EW or Rolling Stone or the New York Times to see what a certain person’s opinion of the film might be doesn’t seem to have the same importance it once did.

We honestly can’t remember the last time, in fact, that we hit the multiplex to see a movie specifically because of its Rotten Tomatoes score. On the contrary, there are plenty of films we loved that got overwhelmingly bad reviews (“John Carter,” for instance), while loathing movies otherwise universally loved. Now, we go to the movies because we’ve seen something about it that interests us, not because someone else we’ve never met tells us we should do so.While we hate to repeat the word “relevant,” it really does apply here. Aside from Ebert, is there any critic out there you really find essential to your choosing of movies? Was he even all that relevant these last couple years?

It’s a shame, really, because we really do believe that critique — like any other kind of writing — is an art unto itself and that those who are good at it deserve all the credit they can handle.

We do not dismiss the importance of the critic’s role at all, we just think that nature has done it for us.

editor@filmnewsbriefs.com

It’s no secret that the future will be entirely mobile. Still, questions remain about how the transition will be accomplished and who will facilitate and/or enable the transition. Tuesday’s Mobile Media Summit offered some surprising answers, not the least of which is the fact that the entire event focused on the ways that advertising sales must adapt to our new mobile future.

Matt Jarvis, Partner and Chief Strategy Officer at 72andSunny, suggests that mobile is not a specific silo, but part of a marketing solution. While mobile means different things to different brands, Jarvis says that every marketer has the same single-focused goal: to drive transactions. “Ads [data] used to measure likability, relevance and persuasion,” he explains. “Mobile changes that dynamic because the potential for relevance is so wild and unique that it becomes an amazing opportunity.” Consequently, the biggest change might be in the way we define the concept of persuasion.

Some of the discussions ventured into areas that seem contradictory to the very idea of mobile. For example, Jonathan Haber, Chief Innovative Officer at OMD, introduced the concept of “queueing,” where a mobile app would set up the equivalent of red velvet ropes and enable consumers to line up virtually in order to wait for an event. No matter which way the discussion scattered, the underlying challenge was ever-present: brands are currently designating significantly less than 10 percent of their advertising budget to mobile. The double-edged sword is that they expect the agencies to perform feats of creative magic in order to design and execute the mobile campaigns. Further complicating things, John Able, Director of Global Marketing for Mazda Corporation, suggests there is an obvious intersection between cars and mobile: the phone we use to connect with friends and the vehicle that we use to get to them. Ian Televik, Internet Marketing Supervisor for Kia Motors America calls it “The Connected Car” or, in other words, a two-ton mobile device.

Another large problem that has emerged in this space involves the seemingly endless collection of Big Data. We know that all kinds of information is gathered and analyzed and stored in some huge cloud system. While some conspiracy theorists may worry about the notion that the details of our personal lives might be subject to exposure, spending a day listening to these experts put my concerns to rest. Turns out, the information is so complex and so voluminous that nobody is quite sure how to use it effectively. They can’t rely on the old methods of mining data because, as Greg Tarr, Founding Board Member at Ad Mobius explains: “You don’t want to do a ‘spray and pray’ – you want to have a definite objective.”

The reality is that mobile has insinuated itself into every corner of our lives. Olga Weinraub of Team Garage Mazda cited a report that 52 percent of adults and 81 percent of millennials have their mobile phone next to them when they watch TV. As the phones get larger and the tablets get smaller – merging into what Greg Crokart of Joule calls a “ph-ablet” – TV is going to have a tougher time holding their attention during the commercials. That is the point where opportunity can be found for those advertising agencies who – through the cooperation of their sales and creative divisions – can figure out the right combination of entertainment content and advertising message.

Catherine@nuclearfamilyfilms.com

Maybe it’s because we’ve been running around a lot over the last couple weeks, and that we’ve been so overwhelmingly fascinated by this whole “Veronica Mars” movie business, but we really do tend to pay attention to weekly trends in the entertainment bidness so as to have something interesting to say when we take up this space every week. With that in mind, and perhaps because we’ve been distracted, there wasn’t really anything that caught our fancy enough to spend our usual 600 or so words on it.

Likewise, we toyed with the idea of an April Fool’s Joke, but were not terribly inspired by anything that might actually work, so we jettisoned that notion, too.

There are a couple things, though, that might be worth a fraction of that, so let’s try it that way.

For starters, the biggest story we’ve seen in the entertainment pages this week have been about the Supreme Court debating gay marriage and DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act, natch), and how everyone seems to be reacting to it. We haven’t really gone near this because we view it as a political and thus not in our purview, but what we find interesting about it is that, very gradually, pop culture has made the issue a part of the mainstream.

Think about this for a second. Without taking one side or the other (as we’ve stated in the past, our opinion on it is not relevant to these proceedings), the way television and movies have portrayed domestic partnerships and, where legal, marriage between two people of the same gender has softened it in the public eye to the point where we tend to think most people who pay any attention at all to anything in the mainstream media don’t see any issue with it. Even ultra conservative Bill O’Reilly admits that those in favor of the issue have done a far better job of making their case than those against.

Look at shows like “Modern Family” and “The New Normal,” just two name two, and you realize that Hollywood has very subtly and deliberately telling us how to feel about the matter for a while now, and there aren’t a lot of people complaining about it.

One other thing for the road. We read that Tom Cruise has no interest in settling his defamation case with “In Touch” magazine because of their cover story declaring that he “abandoned” his daughter.

We don’t like gossip rags, never have and never will. We don’t get the hard core rumor porn and the extended schadenfreude that goes with it, nor are we fans of tearing people down because we can. We’ve had plenty of experience with folks who do — and quite recently, unfortunately — and no matter what happens, we just fail to see the upside of it.

If the magazine really screwed up like Cruise says they did, then they sure as heck should be made to pay for it.

Of course, we tend to think that about anyone, but perhaps that’s just us.

Editor@filmnewsbriefs.com

From the mid-eighties through the late-nineties, I was a fixture on the WGA Committee of Women Writers. I truly believed that if we fought the good fight for equality we would ultimately establish meaningful inroads. We did studies of network and studio hiring practices. We rallied behind a professor at UC San Diego whose own studies lent an element of objectivity to the discussion. We held panels and launched access programs. Every year, I took it upon myself to count the women who received credit on theatrical feature films that qualified for WGA awards. Every year, I would double check my math hoping that I had missed something rather than accept the single digit number of women compared to the triple digit ranks of men in the same category. Over the course of years, the industry managed to increase the percentage of women writing for film and television in an amount that was so insignificant that it could qualify in the category of statistical “range of error.” Ultimately, I walked away from the battle and opted to pursue print and digital media opportunities.

This week, the Writers Guild of America West held a press conference to announce the WGA 2013 TV Staffing Brief – a report of the hiring practices of networks and studios in regard to women and minority categories. As always, the progress was akin to the proverbial drop in the bucket. Between the 1999 and 2012 television seasons, the number of women who were hired as staff writers on television series increased by 5 percent. To quote the report: “At this rate of increase, it would be another 42 years before women – roughly half the U.S. population – reach proportionate representation in television staff employment.” Perhaps I was too optimistic. Make that a drop in the river.

When I started writing episodic television in 1980, I was frequently told that I “write like a man.” I preferred to think that I “write like a woman who likes men” – but when I said that to a producer I was told that I needed to learn how to take a compliment. Remember, this was in the days before anti-discrimination litigation was commonplace and people felt they could speak their mind. Other ridiculous comments that were said to me in the 1980’s include:

“I hired a girl once and it didn’t work out.”

“What’s the matter – doesn’t your husband make a good enough living?”

“Why don’t you want to stay home with your baby?”

“You know, when MY wife was post-partum …”

While there are many ways to debate the first three absurd comments, the last one is a killer. No telling what this fella’s wife went through after giving birth to his progeny. While I would have welcomed an opportunity to let her know that she was being used as an excuse for unfair hiring practices, I also took into consideration the delight it must have been to live with this guy. The important take away note is that they may not be saying things like this anymore, but the numbers certainly do not demonstrate a drastically different way of thinking.

In the 2011-12 television season, 10 percent of television series had no women writers on staff. But it’s not just the ranks of writers that need a shakeup. Only 18.6 percent of the executive producers on television series were women. So, given the oft-repeated, completely inexcusable excuse that “we hire the people we know who tend to be like us” part of the solution is that women writers ought to be working together with women producers to increase their numbers. Otherwise we are facing a tragic fact: our only consolation is the fact that more women in our generation are living to celebrate their 100th birthday.

Catherine@nuclearfamilyfilms.com levitra viagra

Last week, we expounded at length about this “Veronica Mars” movie raising its money on Kickstarter, but it occurred to us after the fact that we only covered part of the issue, and since it’s a large enough matter in the grand scheme of things, we thought it wouldn’t hurt to return to the subject for one more week.

Previously, we spent most of the time responding to the way various others reacted to the news of Rob Thomas getting the money he needs to make the movie in record time. Show runners of other short-lived but beloved TV shows, a writer from Indiewire fretting about how this could adversely affect the way movies are made from here on and how it might exploit the public, stuff like that. Mind you, we don’t regret anything we wrote, nor do we have any second thoughts. Upon reflection, we feel even more strongly than we did a week ago. The truth of the matter is, we think this is only a good thing, and there’s not much you could tell us — we don’t think — that would change our minds about it.

But, having said all that, we do feel like we missed a big part of why this particular campaign is so important, even more so considering it’s almost instant success.

Let’s move past the idea of a TV show creator using Kickstarter — or one of the other crowdsourcing sites — to do what Thomas and his star, Kristen Bell, did with “VM,” and look at the bigger picture. Yes, the mission statement for Kickstarter has much more to do with smaller projects finding the money they need to move forward, but who’s to say that’s all it has to be? The fact that the “Mars” project was the largest movie-based project to date on the site and that it accomplished its sizable goal so quickly should not just make TV show runners sit up and take notice, but also established filmmakers with real followings who might be having trouble raising the funds they want for their newest project.

There are certain directors who don’t really need this service, and it’s a sure thing we won’t be seeing the likes of Spielberg, Scorsese or Nolan on the Kickstarter rolls any time soon, but there are plenty of talented men and women with solid fan bases who could probably get a million or two to make something small and intimate while awaiting the next big studio gig.

The thing about this “Mars” project is that, while the show had about three million viewers, so far only a little more than 50,000 of them have actually donated any money to this enterprise. As the current dollar total is closing in on $4 million (with two and a half weeks to go!), you’re going to tell us an experienced filmmaker couldn’t get a good-sized chunk of that for a project of his or her own?

Since the “Mars” project hit the boards, we spent a little time trolling around Kickstarter to see what else was out there. From what we could see, most of the numbers topped out in the low-to-mid five figures. Unknowns with tiny projects looking to break into the film business the only way they’re able.

Nothing wrong with that. On the contrary, we think it’s great. We saw a couple things that caught our interest and led us to contemplate putting a few dollars in their bucket as they passed it around the interwebs. Just imagine what would happen if, say, Jim Jarmusch decided he wanted to do something small and he had a couple of his famous friends involved, but no studio wanted to give him the money because … well, it’s Jim Jarmusch. He needs $750,000 for his project and Bill Murray will play a supporting role.

Not only do we think Jarmusch would get the money he needs, and then some, we think the notoriety of the project would only draw others — like, say, us — to the website and might lead us to throw some dough at someone else’s baby.

Let’s say Jarmusch doesn’t do it for you? How about if Paul Greengrass had a small film he really wanted to make and his buddy Matt Damon was busy, so the studios were ignoring the project? You wouldn’t want to at least investigate something like that? Because we sure would …

The long and short of it is, if we’re running Kickstarter, we’re feeling REALLY good right now, and have been since all this stuff hit the fan a week and a half ago.

We think that this has just barely scratched the surface. No matter what the ultimate success of the “Veronica Mars” movie is, the fact that we’re even having this conversation at all is nothing but positive. It might, in fact, be the exact shot in the arm the indie film world could use right about now.

Editor@filmnewsbriefs.com kamagra

If you haven’t already heard, I am sorry to be the one to break it to you. “Enlightened” will not be coming back for a third season. After much soulful, gut wrenching debate, the series has been canceled. Excuse me? “Enlightened.” You know – that dark, edgy series about a dysfunctional yet quirky and likable character. It was on HBO for two seasons. It was critically acclaimed. According to The Wrap, the second season premiere attracted 43 percent more viewers than the series debut – that’s at least 300,000 viewers! At this rate, they might have made it to a whole million viewers by season five.

At this point, I should apologize for my sarcasm. I do not subscribe to Schadenfreude and do not take pleasure in anyone’s misfortune. Certainly, the creative and production team behind the series has been sent into varying levels of crisis mode as they scramble to find their next regular job. The series’ star, Laura Dern, is a wonderful actress whose performances almost always bring an element of heart to whatever role she plays. So, let me go on record as saying it’s most likely not her fault that the series didn’t find a big enough audience to justify the production costs or schedule placement. Chances are, it’s not even the fault of the writers, producers, directors, co-stars or any other participant in the project. Indeed, I am willing to go on record as saying the fault lies with an obsolete trend that needs to be pronounced dead and buried without tribute.

Enough with the edge, Hollywood! The audience is tired of dysfunction and the numbers prove it. In the same week that “Enlightened” attracted 300,000 viewers, “Blue Bloods” — the lowest rated show on Nielsen’s Top 10 chart — attracted 10.7 million viewers. The remaining nine shows included “NCIS” and “NCIS Los Angeles,” “Big Bang Theory,” “Two and a Half Men,” “60 Minutes,” “Person of Interest” and THREE different versions of “American Idol.” What do all of the Top 10 shows have in common? With the exception of “60 Minutes,” the other nine series are about functional relationships between “families” of friends or professional colleagues.

Maybe it’s time for Hollywood to take a field trip across America. Visit the parks and the coffee shops in the amalgam of little cities and towns that make up The Flyovers that most of us fled to come here. People are trying really hard to feel good. After a long, hard day, the audience wants to relax and enjoy themselves — to escape for a few hours watching programs that don’t resemble the crap they deal with in their everyday grind. So shows that resemble the dreary aspects of their own lives are not going to win the heart of America.

If nothing else, every development executive in the industry should hold their next power lunch at The Beverly Center. Walk around and look in the stores. There is color everywhere — clothes, shoes, accessories, luggage, furniture, electronics, dishes and cookware – bright, vibrant color. Everybody wants to be happy! So, as the industry slides into that time of year where new and returning series get greenlit, I’d suggest they consider making that greenlight a very bright green. Happy will win the day, while the dark, edgy series continue to attract a small, nihilistic following. As for those critics that are acclaiming these dark, edgy shows? Get some sun. Take your vitamins. Adopt a puppy. Lighten up!

Catherine@nuclearfamilyfilms.com

If you paid any attention to what was going on in the entertainment world the second half of last week, there won’t be much mystery as to today’s subject. The fact that we’ve been enormous fans of “Veronica Mars” since the beginning has nothing to do with how amazed we are by what happened, though it does affect our general level of joy on the matter.

For those who are unaware, there was this show on the WB (and then the CW) from 2004 to 2007 called “Veronica Mars,” about a teenaged sleuth in southern California. It starred Kristen Bell and was smart, funny, dark, thrilling and pretty much everything else you’d want in a TV show, and it only lasted three seasons because, of course, not enough people watched it. Those who did, though (us included), loved it beyond words or rationale, and hoped beyond hope that the show could somehow be resurrected in some fashion.

Enter show creator Rob Thomas, Bell, and a little thing called Kickstarter. Thomas was informed of the site, then he and Bell went to Warner Brothers, who own the rights to “Veronica Mars.” A deal was made: if Thomas and Bell could get the fans to put up a minimum of $2 million to make the movie, Warner would distribute the film and handle all P&A, with the suits thinking there was no way they’d ever have to hold up their end of the bargain.

But then, just 10 hours after the project was listed, the $2 million goal was reached. As of this writing, it’s closing in on $3.5 million, with every dollar raised (minus Kickstarter fees, of course) going to the film’s budget. We think a conservative guess as to the final number will be in the $5 million range, but we won’t be certain until April 12, when the money drive ends. (Full disclosure, we kicked in $25 ourselves, because we really want one of those “Veronica Mars — The Movie” T-shirts to impress people at the gym.)

The immediate response to this came from all over, and in all forms. Some immediately thought of other shows, including the show runners. Bryan Fuller wondered aloud if he could do the same kind of thing for a “Pushing Daisies” movie, and Shawn Ryan did the same for “a wrap-up movie for ‘Terriers.’” Likewise, fans immediately lit up the Twitterverse asking Lauren Graham about a possible “Gilmore Girls” flick, and Joss Whedon had to answer the inevitable questions about another “Firefly” movie.

Let’s address each of these in turn, and then get to the bigger questions. First, a “Pushing Daisies” movie could never happen for such a small number, nor could “Firefly” (which doesn’t really matter, anyway, because Whedon quickly responded that he belongs to Marvel for the next three years or so, which means it’ll be a while before he can even think of such a thing). “Gilmore Girls” ended things rather nicely, we thought, and even so, show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino is the one to ask about that, not the lovely Ms. Graham. The one show for which it would make sense would be “Terriers,” both price-wise and story-wise. The issue with that is, even though the fans of “Terriers” were quite rabid (again, we were among their number), the numbers were nowhere near those of Miss Mars.

Could it happen? We’d love to see it, and would certainly donate another few bucks to the cause, but we doubt Mr. Ryan will be able to pull it off.

But let’s look at the bigger picture. There is an interesting and well-written piece on Indiewire about this very thing, wondering about things like the crowdfunding of a movie like “Prometheus,” or how giving to a more visible project like a “Veronica Mars” movie takes money away from other, smaller projects that might need it more, but the biggest point it makes is the one that we find most interesting: corporations allowing the public to fund its movies and thus lessening the company’s risk.

The first two points don’t make much sense to us (there are clear and obvious limits to how much you’d be able to raise, for starters, and the second point we think is over-thinking things, because just using us as an example, we were not going to be giving any dough to any other projects before this one came along), but the third one does, in that we happen to completely disagree with everything about it.

Corporations are in the business of making money. If the method of making money involves the creation and distribution of movies, then the risk involved with each movie released must be adequately gauged. Is the project worth pursuing? Will it make the corporation money? If the feeling is that the risk is too great, the corporation will generally refuse to take that risk. Simple economics, really.

However, if the corporation has a property on which someone else is willing to take said risk, and the costs to the corporation are minimal (in this case, a relatively small amount for digital distribution and some P&A costs), why not do it? The alternative is to let the project languish in the purgatory of all the other abandoned properties, because the risk is otherwise not worth taking.

One of the points mentioned in the Indiewire piece is that these corporations will be using our money to finance their films, but again, we think that misses a bigger point. The studios, you see, are already using our money to finance their projects. If they release a film and we don’t see it, the corporation loses money. Do that enough times, and the corporation goes out of business. Keep seeing their movies, and more movies come out. See how that works? Again, the economics are not terribly complicated.

We view this as a rather public test case that has no real loser. The creators of the show get another chance to revisit the world and see if they can turn it into a lower budget movie franchise. The fans get to see their beloved characters again and feel a real and literal proprietorship over the project. The studio gets to sit back and, for a very small amount of dough, see if this is something that might be a pretty solid business model going forward, one that could, perhaps, once again allow large studios to make the smaller, more intimate movies they stopped making some years back.

The only real risk, ultimately, is that the movie sucks. Since we already know the players involved, though, we have faith that it won’t. Either way, we’re thrilled and excited that we’ll have the chance to see for ourselves.

editor@filmnewsbriefs.com viagra

When Angry Birds came out of nowhere, many people thought it was a fluke. The Finnish start-up that had gone through a series of name changes had launched dozens of games that failed to take off. Finally they had a game that people were playing. Given their track record, the odds of Rovio doing it again were slim. But maybe there’s something in the cold, unpolluted air of Finland that enabled Rovio’s leadership to figure out the subtle truth of the entertainment industry: you don’t have to do a hundred things well – you just have to do one thing so brilliantly that it sustains through a hundred iterations.

Within five years, Rovio had turned their angry little birds into a business empire with valuation estimates ranging between $8-9 billion and speculation that there will be an IPO sometime later this year. Angry Birds were licensed to products and became commercial “spokespersons” for a number of brands. Their YouTube channel has accumulated more than 500,000 subscribers with more than a billion views. The next logical step would be a cartoon series – which is exactly what Rovio just announced that they have decided to pursue. But the innovative twist they’ve maneuvered may prove to be the most significant game changer in the history of cartoon programming.

The Angry Birds game app (in both free and paid versions) has been downloaded 1.7 billion times. Instead of using the old school model of distributing their cartoon series through a television or cable network, Rovio has invented a new distribution silo. Beginning on March 17th — which may be symbolic of the 1.7 billon users or a sly association to St. Patrick, who specialized in banishing snakes — Angry Birds Toons will be viewable through the Angry Birds App. This business model will enable Rovio to retain all advertising proceeds. Given a willing market of that size, there was no reason to go through a secondary delivery system.

The same business model was recently tried — with great success — by comedian Louis C.K. In 2010, C.K. released an independently produced concert special through his personal website. Priced at $5, the digital download earned him at least $1 million in the first year. He plans to use this business model for subsequent projects. And why wouldn’t he?

While television networks make every effort to cling to the antiquated models that ensured success in past decades, independents are moving into the digital world with great gusto. The ingredients for success include:

1. A content creator with a large email list that is based on opt-in affinity

2. A target demographic that has demonstrated an appetite for this creator’s content

3. Technology that enables a direct connection between the two.

But here’s the secret sauce that’s easy to miss: all of this is contingent upon building a relationship between the content/talent and the audience. Given the one-on-one connectivity element that is required in relationships, this is one of the biggest hurdles that have to be faced by the networks. Relationships between content/talent and their audience are emotional. Yet, networks continue to consider the content/talent as one of their properties that exist only for the purpose of corporate monetization. In recent decades, networks have been able to control the talent. Now, thanks to folks like Rovio and Louis C.K., all bets are off.

While the networks focus on spreading the message of their corporate brand identity, content has become the only brand that matters. If the networks are unwilling to accept this, they will be smashed by a boulder of audience rebellion. And as they lie in the rubble of their corporate bottom line, they’ll seem as clueless as the pigs who never thought those angry little birds from Finland could break through their secure edifice.

Catherine@nuclearfamilyfilms.com

So this week, something irritating, something sad and something that restores my optimism in movies.

Firstly I think I’m going to blow my lid if I see reference to Jason Momoa’s missteps one more time. We all saw Momoa in “Game Of Thrones” right? The guy was clearly born to be Conan. It’s is neither his fault nor his misstep that Marcus Nispel was clearly trying his level best to destroy both Momoa and the wonderful Stephen Lang’s careers with that bloody terrible film. Maybe if Nispel had ever actually read any of Robert E. Howard’s stories or had studied harder in film school, maybe if we stop expecting guys who make commercials and music videos to suddenly develop a talent for storytelling they never possessed, then Conan would actually be scheduling the second movie in a flourishing franchise? Good grief, I just don’t understand how fantasy can be handled so deftly on television and then thrown to the dogs when big money is on the line. Anyway, New Rule: nobody is allowed to trash Momoa until he actually turns in a bad performance.

Sam Mendes! Why, Sam? I teach Shakespeare and even I am grief stricken that Sam Mendes is throwing over Bond for theatre (note to Editor: please do not correct my already correct spelling of the word theatre? I’m trying to start something here …). [Ed. Note: Done] When I saw “Skyfall,” every single suspicion I have had about quality directors making action adventure movies was validated. That film is a shining indictment of every movie Michael Bay has ever made. It reminds the viewer (well … this viewer anyway) that “King Lear” has all the violence that anyone could ever ask for, but because we are given five acts to care about all the characters, we don’t ever remember that part. It was thrilling. It was moving. It was the first Bond film that understood and effectively utilized the relationship between Judy Dench’s magnificent turn as “M” and Bond and … it’s not fair to just abandon us now!

And, finally, let me state that I am aware that both Ridley Scott and Zach Snyder made their bones selling cars and toothpaste, and it in no way invalidates my above comment. Story is all important. Directors who do not understand this should be run out of Hollywood on a rail. That being said, Snyder’s debut, “Dawn Of The Dead” alone is pretty conclusive proof that Zach gets it. So has anyone heard the early word on “Man Of Steel”? I have derided more or less every single attempt at a Superman movie (yeah, I’m the guy who didn’t care for Richard Donner’s efforts), merely because Superman as a character is deeply flawed. Lex Luthor? A con-man with a real estate fetish is supposed to be the foil for … God? Frank Miller understood the character, which is why Kal-El always works better as a side player in a Batman story. Snyder clearly understood what Dr. Manhattan was representing in “Watchman” so … the early word? Apparently it’s not just a good movie. Apparently it’s the best movie. Not the best superhero movie. The early word suggests it is THE BEST MOVIE EVER MADE. After the unmitigated dreck that passes for superhero movies not made by Whedon or Nolan nowadays [Ed. Note: Um, "Iron Man," "Captain America" and "Thor" were pretty good ...], them are fightin’ words. Here’s the best part. Snyder is capable. It could be true. It could also be incredibly solid PR, but … maybe, just maybe, somebody made MY Superman movie. Ah, I love the smell of celluloid in the morning!

Andrew@filmnewsbriefs.com

We never really noticed this before, but after the Oscars are over, there’s kind of a dearth of anything interesting going on in the entertainment world until the summer movie season starts around the Ides of March. It’s ironic, because we do nothing but complain about the length of the awards season and how silly it all is that we have to bequeath repeated honors on the same few people for months at a time, only to have a bit of postpartum after it’s over.

Yes, we know we’re hypocrites. And cranky. We acknowledge this, now let’s move on.

But while we wind ourselves up about all the nonsense, when it’s over, we end up looking around and saying, “Um … okay … well … now what?” If we’d had the time this year, we would have hit South By Southwest, which is the best festival out there, for our money, but we didn’t, so we were stuck bumming around over the weekend, finally catching that new Soderbergh flick (surprisingly fun) and sitting through the Eagles documentary on Showtime (moments of genius, but otherwise, meh). All the while, trying to find something that aggravated us enough that we could then complain to you about it for 500 words.

Only when we noticed that “Oz, The Great And Powerful” made $80 million at the box office this weekend did we find the loose thread we now plan to pull until the figurative sweater is ruined.

A few years back, that Tim Burton-Johnny Depp “Alice In Wonderland” flick made, like, a billion dollars when it was released in March, so that became the new norm, getting one of these big spectacle things out there early, while people are starving for something big and spectacle-y after suffering through those dreary winter months.

This week, we’ve got the Steve Carell-Jim Carrey “Burt Wonderstone” thing, then the first of the dueling White House Under Attack flicks the week after and a new “G.I. Joe” monstrosity the week after, and before you know it, we’re in April, and then fun really begins.

What we’ve never really understood is why, exactly, January and February are so dead at the multiplexes. One would think that after all the prestigious stuff that fills screens throughout the fall, releasing a bunch of movies that are a little more fun and less, for the lack of a better word, work, might be a good idea. Instead, that’s when all the crap is dropped on us, and the studios wonder why ticket sales are so lousy.

Ultimately, we’re just glad to have anything of interest in the theaters, and we find ourselves glancing at the upcoming release schedule and circling certain dates. We kinda can’t help it.

Editor@filmnewsbriefs.com actonel

The entertainment industry is built upon a collective belief system. Complicated truisms are mashed up with arbitrary rules and then manipulated with smoke and mirrors to create factoids – or, rather, misconceptions – upon which a multi-billion dollar industry operates. Their guiding principle is a decades-old statement perpetrated by a brilliant, yet disgruntled, screenwriter: “Nobody Knows Anything.” Perpetuated by a critical mass of unquestioning evangelists, this excuse has enabled bad practices such as buying nearly 100 television pilot scripts, filming about half of them in order to select a baker’s dozen that will make it to the fall lineup. By Thanksgiving, only a handful of those new series will survive. When all is said and done, the failures will be written off with a sincere recitation of the mystery of our faith: Nobody Knows Anything.

While this annual tradition is problematic on a number of levels, there is one point in the process that seems particularly misplaced. The point at which somebody might be able to speak with authority – to actually know something – occurs after the mountain of produced pilots are “tested” in front of a real audience. This is the point where change needs to occur.

Enter New Media Metrics, a disruptive opportunity that may have the potential to shift the pilot development equation toward a more fiscally responsible business model. Co-founder and principal, Gary Reisman spent the first 25 years of his career in marketing, advertising and media consulting at agencies including Young & Rubicam and FCBDraft. He has consulted with clients including American Express, AT&T, Kraft, Marriott, Time Inc. and Xerox. From that he segued into the position of VP Strategic Marketing at Turner Broadcasting and VP Sales and Marketing for CNN.com International. It can comfortably be presumed that those experiences afford him the perspective to understand media or, in other words, know something.

In 2004, Reisman partnered with Denise Larson, who also came from an advertising background with clients including Nestle Foods, Burger King, Domino’s Pizza, Kodak and Kraft Foods. Larson had combined her background in qualitative research with theories of emotional attachment to create LEAP – Leveraging Emotional Attachment for Profit – a system that measures a consumer’s affinity for a product or media property. Since they shared marketing and advertising roots, Reisman and Larson set up their shop to service brands in their quest to advertise on the most successful television series.

Using a proprietary system of analysis, LEAP can predict the failure or success of a television project by testing a simple 3-4 sentence concept statement of a series across an appropriate demographic spectrum. According to Reisman, their system has proven 67.1 percent accurate over an eight year period. For example, in 2008, LEAP predicted that “Fringe” would succeed while “Life On Mars” would not. In 2012, LEAP predicted that “Revolution” and “Arrow” would be successful while “Made in Jersey” and “Emily Owens M.D.” would fall by the wayside. These predictions were made for brand advertisers up to six months before the series aired.

When the networks begin their upfront presentations to the advertisers this spring, some brands will be armed with the LEAP scores. If there’s a reason why the networks won’t have the same results … nobody knows.

Catherine@nuclearfamilyfilms.com

Viacom’s Paramount Pictures is back in television production for the first time in about eight years with a pact to co-finance and co-produce the pilot for a series based on the 1980s Beverly Hills Cop movie franchise with Sony Pictures Television for CBS.
OUR EDITOR RECOMMENDS

Christine Lahti Nabs Female Lead in CBS’ ‘Beverly Hills Cop’

‘Argo’ Actress Joins CBS’ ‘Beverly Hills Cop’

CBS’ ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ Finds its Judge Reinhold in ‘The Office’ Actor

Kevin Pollak to Co-Star in CBS’ ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ Pilot

Shawn Ryan’s ‘Beverly Hills Cop,’ Hart Hanson Crime Drama Among CBS Pilot Orders
The news comes shortly after Viacom’s Philippe Dauman said Monday that Paramount was looking to return to television production for the first time since the studio was split from CBS into two separate companies in 2005.

We’re starting to think that hosting the Academy Awards is a no-win situation.

Seriously, not since Billy Crystal was in his prime, almost 20 years ago, do we remember having anyone come out of the role and be celebrated the next day, or the next week, or ever again. Seth McFarlane became the latest member of the club to be roasted at the spit for doing pretty much exactly what he was hired to do.

The myth of the Oscars is that the host has a whole lot to do with the pace of the show. He or she really doesn’t. There’s the opening monologue, which sets the overall tone, and then it’s pretty much out of their hands. Awards and presenters come and go, speeches are made, clip reels air, songs are sung, more speeches are given, retrospectives are shown, and so on. Just when you think you’re going to be getting out of there in about three hours, things slow to a crawl and you realize you’re stuck until midnight and just hope you don’t run out of booze.

But that’s not really why our boy Seth has been raked over the coals, it’s because of his “misogyny” and his (ahem) “crassness.”

To the former, we say it wasn’t anything we don’t see on a pretty much daily basis coming out of Hollywood (and it didn’t appear to us that Naomi Watts, Jennifer Lawrence or Charlize Theron were a part of that “We Saw Your Boobs” number under duress), or have you forgotten that no actress over a certain age gets regular work anymore unless her last name is Streep? Or that actresses are constantly being asked and/or pressured to go topless on screen, in a way that men most certainly aren’t.

Don’t get us wrong, we’re white and male and don’t have to deal with these things, but we also think people need to lighten up a bit. (To wit, the crowd who booed the Mel Gibson joke, implying Mel’s inherent and well-publicized bigotry. Seriously, people? Supporting Mel? Grow up!)

As to the second point, about his crassness, well, we will once again ask what, exactly, they were expecting. The man behind “Family Guy” and “Ted” is going to do something out of Noel Coward? Right. And we have some land to sell you in Zimbabwe.

It’s possible that we’re juvenile in our sense of humor (again, we are male), and it’s possible that we’re a bit jaded to these kinds of things — our general attitude is people tend to take themselves way too seriously — but isn’t it also possible that he was going to get killed no matter what he did?

Okay, that’s it. No more Oscar talk until the fall. We promise.

Editor@filmnewsbriefs.com

When the latest rendition of the Second Screen Summit convened at the Beverly Hilton this week, there was a palpable excitement in the packed to capacity room. Certainly, the idea of Second Screen content has gone far beyond the point where anyone might dismiss it as a passing fad. This full immersion programming adjunct has taken on a life of its own and may just be on the verge of establishing its importance as a stand-alone art form.

Given the differences between theatrical feature films and television programming, there is a vast spectrum in both the quality and the quantity of content available in the current market. Television series have focused on using a multitude of “bells and whistles,” attention grabbing options that range from opinion polls to eCommerce. You can follow a series’ twitter stream or you can instant chat with your Facebook friends – all while receiving additional messages from the advertisers in the program. The look and feel of the screens is busy and frantic, but in a good way. Through the “magic” of sync technology, the second screen is able to take the consumer on a frame by frame journey through supplemental content. The underlying purpose is to increase engagement with the program in a way that will keep viewers from switching channels or tuning out commercials. One of the more successful second screen apps works with “Sons of Anarchy,” which seems to be enjoying a vibrant merchandising coup through eCommerce transactions that happen during the actual run of the series.

On the other hand, theatrical feature films have demonstrated an extreme level of quality with the focus on illuminating the story beyond the story. While there are many elements that could be compared to the standard “extras” on a DVD/Blu-ray, the newly expanded second screen options have become as polished as the moments in the actual film. We become immersed in the experience on a deeper level because we are introduced to the proverbial man behind the curtain. The cost of creating the digital assets that expand the storytelling onto our iPads is still high – possibly because of the one-off approach to this content. However, the creation of platforms that can be adapted for re-use is expected to begin lowering the production costs.

New companies are forming to create – and test – this content. Partnerships are developing out of the necessity to service the wide range of Android devices that consumers will use to view these features. The field has been divided into five specific service areas for the second screen app:

1. As a form of remote to control the larger screen;

2. To discover programming through recommendation algorithms;

3. To enhance viewing enjoyment;

4. To share with friends;

5. To multitask while watching content on the primary screen.

All of these functions will create new opportunities for content creators. Companies like WatchWith have developed programs that are relatively “turn-key” for the content producers to use. The goal of these companies is to foster collaboration with the creative community. By uniting their efforts through the Second Screen Society, these companies will push this content format to the next level of productivity and profitability. It’s time for the Hollywood creative community to stop pretending that second screen content doesn’t matter and embrace it for the golden opportunity it presents.

Catherine@nuclearfamilyfilms.com viagra

Y’know what? That show was terrific.

First and foremost, it was the first time in years when we didn’t once think, “Damn! That person SO shouldn’t have won.” We were thrilled that Christoph Waltz pulled an upset, and that Ang Lee won (which we called, by the way), and that, thanks to our advice, our brother and sister-in-law won their Oscar pool (but will we see any of that? Ha).

But let’s talk about Seth MacFarlane for a second. Can we agree that he was hilarious? That the opening segment with William Shatner was awesome, and that we’ll be singing “We Saw Your Boobs” for the next few weeks? That he made the Mel Gibson joke and then called the audience out when they audibly winced? One of the best lines of the night was when he ad-libbed, “Oh, so you’re on his side?”

Well played, Seth. Well played, indeed.

We’re in the film business, but we’re also in the business of reporting on it, so we’re kind of torn about the annual self-love fest that is the Oscars. On the one hand, we really want to be a part of it, and on the other, we’re a tad repulsed by how seriously people take themselves.

It’s a paradox, we know, but then, that’s kind of the business we’re in, isn’t it? We create art, but also recognize that it’s a business, and often the artistic side is sacrificed on the altar of the holy dollar.

The art part is what last night is supposed to celebrate, and often it does. Last night, for instance, seemed to be one of those nights when art actually won out. Look at how well “Life of Pi” did, for instance. Now, we don’t know what you thought of it, but we think it happens to be one of the most beautiful movies we’ve ever seen, and to have it rewarded as well as it was last night, that seems to us a just result.

It’s interesting that the Oscars have become akin to the Super Bowl, in a way that the Emmys never could. We love TV, sure, but movies have a special hold on us that surpasses most other things.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, watching the show last night. And it was nice to see Hollywood doing it right for a change. We’ll see how long it lasts, and we’ll see how Tina and Amy do when they inevitably host the show next year.

Editor@filmnewsbriefs.com

I hadn’t been to the WGA Awards since back in the 90′s, when I was on the Board of Directors of my guild. Although I wasn’t up to attending “the writer’s prom,” I was eager to watch the streamed version and set up my 60″ TV to see it in all of its glory. Certainly, there were glitches in the production, but one thing in particular made me angry – something that is so inexcusable that I cannot let it go without being addressed. 

I was literally DISGUSTED by the disrespect that was shown toward our colleagues who won the awards for writing in the New Media. The presenter in this category – Mark Duplass – is blessed with a successful career in both network television and feature films. He is that rare quad-hyphenate of producer-writer-director-actor and is represented by one of the three top agencies. At Duplass’ current professional level, the money that can be earned by writers and actors who are working in New Media is nowhere near comparable to the price he is able to command for his professional services. But the comparison is apples to oranges. So it was quite jarring when he made disparaging comments while introducing the category, and then went head first into a series of insults about the winners being unable to attend to accept their awards because they were homeless and living in their cars since they were paid so little to write in this arena.

Why would anyone disparage ANY writer whose work is deemed important enough to be honored with a peer achievement award??? And why would they do it at the moment when the honor is being bestowed???

Like it or not, our industry is changing. The future is online and everybody outside of the creative guilds is moving forward accordingly. Indeed, the MBA minimums in New Media are not going to make anyone rich but, strike or not, those deals are unlikely to get much better in an environment where online “talent” is both represented by the top three agencies AND is willing to barter their work for ad share revenue rather than settle for upfront payment at minimum levels. The networks have created portals. Comcast bought a studio and a network. Tech giants are going to buy every remaining network and studio and then transform our industry into forms and formats you can’t even conceive of yet. This is going to be a trend over the next five years, whether we like it or not. The train is leaving the station. If you don’t buy a ticket you will simply be left behind. 

Every writer who works in the category of New Media is a pioneer in the same way that our elderly colleagues were pioneers in the early days of television. We now hold these TV pioneers in great esteem, as we will one day hold our New Media colleagues in the same esteem. They are on the front lines of a digital revolution and we need to support them, not insult them!

Last but not least, there is one great irony to this event. The Writers Guild of America couldn’t even get a second or third tier cable channel to broadcast this program. So what did they do? THEY TURNED TO NEW MEDIA AND LIVE STREAMED IT ONLINE! 

Throughout the evening, more than 29,000 viewers tuned in to the live stream of this show. Yet, less than 2,500 held steady through the program. For those who understand ratings and metrics, those numbers tell another story all together. In a year when the buzz has already started saber rattling about striking for increased participation in digital income, perhaps these are the most important numbers our writers should be considering.

Catherine@nuclearfamilyfilms.com

We’re not even going to pretend to have any clue about what’s happening in this year’s Oscar race, because unlike just about every other year in recent memory, there is very little that makes much of any sense at all. To wit, “Argo” has captured just about every possible award leading up to the ceremony six days hence, but director Ben Affleck wasn’t even nominated (something about which we’ve complained before), and only three times in history has a film won Best Picture without a Best Director nomination and it also hasn’t happened since “Driving Miss Daisy” in 1989 and …

(Deep breath)

Okay, the only thing we can figure, like, even at all, is that Daniel Day-Lewis is going to win Best Actor (though, quite honestly, we thought Denzel Washington turned in the very best performance of an amazing career, but we don’t get a vote, so …). After that, your guess is as good as ours, so we’ll just make some general comments about the other races and then come back next week to discuss what actually happened. Okay?

We are on record in these parts about our just-this-side-of-creepy affection for Jennifer Lawrence, and we loved her work in “Silver Linings Playbook,” but here’s why we think Jessica Chastain should win: we never saw her do anything like this ever before, and it wasn’t until seeing her in “Zero Dark Thirty” that we finally sat up and said, “Okay, now we get it.” Jennifer? We got it a couple years ago, but Jessica’s work in “ZDT” was simply amazing.

There is no earthly way Benh Zeitlin or Michael Haneke is going to win Best Director, and we think David O. Russell is not quite as long a shot, which means it’s either Steven Spielberg or Ang Lee. We liked Lincoln fine, but we thought it was overlong and a bit ponderous. “Life of Pi,” however, was not only one of the most beautiful movies we’ve ever seen, but also the best use of 3D this side of “Hugo.” We’re rooting for Ang.

Best Supporting Actor? Quite frankly, we’d be fine with any of these guys winning. Same sort of goes for Supporting Actress, although we’d lean toward Jacki Weaver. Anne Hathaway is the frontrunner, and we’ve heard some complain that it’s for singing that one song, but we would point out that at least Anne was singing it live. Jennifer Hudson won this award a few years back for lip synching.

The writing awards are always interesting to us, for obvious reasons, and we think we’d be fine with any of the Adapted nominees winning, though we tend to think it will either be Quentin Tarantino for “Django,” or Mark Boal for “ZDT.” Will Boal win again two years after winning before? And for a movie that is as divisive as this one, for which his director got snubbed? We doubt it, so we’ll pick QT, and hope that John Gatins pulls an upset for the brilliant “Flight.”

In the Original category, as great a job as Tony Kushner did on “Lincoln” and David Magee did on “Life of Pi,” we think Chris Terrio is going to take it for “Argo,” as part of one of the weirdest Oscar sweeps in recent memory.

If that wasn’t clear, that we think “Argo” is going to win, well … we didn’t want to have to be so on the nose about it. Thanks a lot.

If you want to know what we think about anything else, just click on the link and write to us. We’ll tell you anything you want to hear.

editor@filmnewsbriefs.com