Life On The Bubble

Last minute invite: Fun Little Movies' Frank Chindamo chats with BOSI's Marvin Acuna tonight at 7:30p

Here's a quick, semi-last minute tip for aspiring writers and anyone else interested in developing mobile and web content.  My friend and colleague Marvin Acuna's Business of Show Institute is hosting a free, 90 minute, live streaming video event tonight at 7:30p Pacific with Frank Chindamo, President and Chief Creative Officer of Fun Little Movies.  Here's the link to sign up:

http://www.thebusinessofshowinstitute.com/frankchindamo/

I'm looking forward to it myself; the conversation will revolve around strategies and tactics for aspiring writers to break into the business (and start getting paid) by writing for new media (mobile and the web).  It's an area of the business I don't yet know much about, and I'm looking forward to hearing about it from someone who's been out there getting it done in that space for a while now.

Again, the event starts at 7:30p Pacific tonight, and all you have to do participate in the live Q&A (or just lurk and learn, like me) is click through the link and register.  If you can't make it tonight but are interested in what Frank has to say, register anyway -- a recording of conversation will be made available afterwards to everyone who signs up.  Here's that link again:

http://www.thebusinessofshowinstitute.com/frankchindamo/

Mark Warren (Esquire): Avastin Death Panels Meme - Anatomy of a Right-Wing News Headline

I don't have a dog in this political fight, but I thought this was a nice little takedown of bad journalism. Definitely worth clicking through the below link.

 

Alas, journalists for the right-wing press have eager audiences, whether they get anything right or not. This seems particularly true of the right-wing British press — from the Daily Telegraph to the Daily Mail, which makes up stories about movie stars and uses headlines like "The 'gay gene' is back on the scene." All of which is of no concern to aggregators like Drudge and Breitbart, who would have blank home pages but for the vivid imaginations of their brain-damaged Tory counterparts. Because, as even the worst liars in the American press claim to have the highest standards, the worst elements of the British press don't seem to bother with any such pretense. And these embarrassments to the profession don't really seem too fussed about being so bad at what they do, either, because they're actually really good at what they do.

You see, a journalist might feel bad about getting everything wrong. But like Drudge and Breitbart, these guys seem to exist only to feed the beast, work tirelessly (and effectively) to erode Barack Obama's approval ratings (or conversely, give a boost to a more conservative president), get Fox producers all hot and bothered, and leave the messes they make for actual journalists to clean up. Or not.

All that being said, please don't miss Nick Allen's other scoop from this week, "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo actress found."

via www.esquire.com

 

Big Favor: Please take 2 minutes to vote on our SXSW Panel

I need a favor:  Please take 2 minutes to vote on the panel that www.itsonthegrid.com and www.FilmNewsBriefs.com have proposed to present at next year's SXSW Film Festival (which runs March 11-19 in Austin, TX).  Our proposal's made the first cut, and the next round takes users' votes into consideration (to the tune of 30% of the decision).  We'd like to stack the deck in our favor, and we'd really appreciate it if you'd pitch in.

There are two steps to the SXSW PanelPicker voting process:  Sign up for a PanelPicker account here -- they only ask for your name and email address and it literally takes less than a minute.  Once you've clicked through the confirmation email (to activate your account), pop back over here and click this link -- it takes you directly to our panel's page.  (You can also get to the page by clicking the "Explore the proposals for SXSW Film" link on the confirmation page and searching for "Neil Turitz" under the "Organizer" field.)  Once you're on our panels' page, just click the "Thumb's Up" button and you're done.  The whole exercise will take 2 minutes, tops.

Incidentally, the panel is called "Knowledge is Power:  Learning The Business of Hollywood" -- the idea is to highlight how important knowing the business backwards and forwards is to longterm career success, whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out.  It's obviously a topic close to our hearts at FNB and IOTG, and if we make the schedule we're going to assemble a kick-ass panel of producers, executives, agents and managers for the discussion.

Thanks in advance for your time - Neil and Jessica at FNB and I really appreciate your help.

 

The Tracking Board Conquers Comic-Con

Starting Wednesday, July 21, 2010… The Tracking Board will be covering the 2010 San Diego International Comic Con!   Grab your utility belts and super powered rings and get ready for explosive updates starting with floor coverage on Preview Night as we bring you the best in booth displays and cosplay.  And then on opening day and throughout the weekend, we’ll be bringing you hourly, madcap updates on the studio presentations in Hall H — from Joss Whedon unveiling THE AVENGERS cast to Zack Snyder’s first preview of SUCKER PUNCH.

via tracking-board.com

Yet another reason to subscribe to tracking-board.com (or better yet, go for the two-for-one annual subscription with IOTG if you haven't already).

As if their library of 12,000 or so film and TV scripts wasn't enough...

Claudia Eller & Ben Fritz (LA Times): Chris Albrecht's e-mail misfire led to McGurk and Rosett's exit from Overture

Here's a cautionary tale about writing e-mail on a BlackBerry courtesy of Starz President Chris Albrecht.

On July 1, Albrecht touched down in Majorca, Spain, for a vacation. Like any good executive, he checked his BlackBerry. He read an e-mail from two senior Starz executives concerning the future of Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett, the chief executive and chief operating officer, respectively, of Overture Films, a unit of Starz. The fate of Overture has been in question for months as Starz and parent Liberty Media are assessing its viability.

Albrecht tapped out his response to the two executives, suggesting that upon his return July 12 they should discuss removing McGurk and Rosett. However, instead of responding to the e-mail that he'd received from the two executives, he mistakenly replied to a different e-mail about letting Starz employees work half a day on Friday, July 2.

As a result, his note went to approximately 400 Starz employees and senior executives -- including McGurk and Rosett.

via latimesblogs.latimes.com

Brutal.

Amazon.com Help: Kindle Software Updates

Kindle Software Update Version 2.5

• Kindle Version 2.5 Overview
• Automatic Wireless Updates
• Applying Kindle Software Updates Manually
• Troubleshooting Update Issues
• Information for Kindle (1st Generation) Users

Kindle Version 2.5 Overview

We're excited to announce that a new, free software update is now available for Kindle and will be automatically delivered to your device. The features included in this update are:

• Collections: Organize your books, audiobooks, and personal documents into one or more collections. Subscriptions such as newspapers, magazines, and blogs cannot currently be added to collections on Kindle.
  
• PDF Pan and Zoom: Zoom into PDFs and pan around to easily view small print and detailed tables or graphics.
  
• Password Protection: Password protect your Kindle when you're not using it.
  
• More Font Sizes & Improved Clarity: Enjoy two new larger font sizes and sharper fonts for an even more comfortable reading experience.
  
• Facebook & Twitter Posts: Share meaningful book passages with friends on Facebook and Twitter directly from your Kindle.
  
• Popular Highlights: See what the Kindle community thinks are the most interesting passages in the books you're reading.

via www.amazon.com

I'm not sure how I missed this, but there's a new software update for Kindle that looks like it improves PDF viewing. My Kindle hasn't been automatically updated so I assume they're still rolling it out. As with the previous software upgrade, you can manually update your device by downloading the software jumping through a few hoops. I'm downloading it now and figured I'd share with the rest of you Kindle users out there.

Mike Fleming (deadline.com): Even Harry Potter Loses Money Because Of Phony Baloney Net Profit Accounting

Signing a deal that makes anyone a net profit participant  in  a Hollywood movie deal has always been a sucker’s bet. In an era where studios have all but eliminated first dollar gross and invited talent to share the risk and potential rewards, guess what? Net profit deals are still a sucker's bet. I was slipped a net profit statement (below) for Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, the 2007 Warner Bros sequel. Though the film grossed $938.2 million worldwide, the accounting statement below conveys that the film is still over $167 million in the red. (Text continues below...)

via www.deadline.com

Steven Zeitchik (LA Times): Are expectations for 'Inception' go too high?

There's reason, to be sure, to think that "Inception" will rise to the hyperbole. The premise shows promise, the trailer is intriguing, and if anyone has earned this kind of pre-release love, it's Nolan, who's never made a bad film and has made several legitimately great ones.

But there's also a chance -- let's face it, a not insignificant one -- that those expecting an effects-era second-coming of "Citizen Kane" and "The Godfather" won't get all they had hoped for, especially if some of the expository scenes get a little windy, as some who've seen the film say they have. That's when all the hype will come back to bite, as those of us who would have been inclined to like a movie if we came in expectation-free will spend too much of our time trying to decide if it measures up.

via latimesblogs.latimes.com

Interesting take. A couple of my friends who've seen it (pre-hype) say it definitely lives up to the hype, and is a movie people are going to want to see a second time immediately. Can't wait until next week...

Dave McNary (Variety): Story brightens for H' wood scribes

Hollywood scribes saw a 12% rebound in earnings last year -- recovering much of the 15.4% financial hit that they took in 2008 from the double whammy of the recession and the 100-day strike.

The Writers Guild of America West, which sent its annual report to its 8,000 members this week, disclosed that total earnings covered by WGA contracts hit $931.4 million in 2009, up $100 million from 2008. That gain, the report noted, was fueled largely by "strong" earnings by TV writers.

Despite the salary increases, the number of writers employed declined last year by 11 slots to 4,328. And guild leadership took pains to point out that the number of writers getting paychecks has declined by 4.7% from 4,542 in 2006 -- the most recent pre-strike year.

"While earnings have rebounded, the impact of macro-economic pressures is reflected in the number of writers reporting earnings," noted the report, which is traditionally released in the mid-summer.

TV earnings set a record with 10.1% rise to $502.4 million -- $31 million above the record set in 2006 -- but small-screen employment gained only 27 slots to 3,094 last year. And the number of employed writers was down by 241 from the record of 3,335 in 2007 when pre-strike stockpiling drove hiring.

Feature film earnings rebounded 14.5% to $426.4 million in 2009, recovering about half of the steep 29% plunge in 2008. Studio stockpiling had lifted feature earnings in 2007 by 20.5% to a record $525.4 million.

The WGA also disclosed that residuals edged down 0.7% last year, or less than $2 million, to $286 million. TV residuals rose 2.8% to $141.5 million and screen residuals slid 3.3% to $133.3 million.

New media residuals -- one of the key WGA strike issues -- jumped from $100,000 in 2008 to $2.1 million for TV last year, including some delinquent payments. New media residuals for film went from a negligible amount in 2008 to $690,000 last year.

via www.variety.com

Interesting spin, especially compared to the LA Times article I linked to earlier today.

R.I.P. Ed Limato – Deadline.com

Ed Limato had been ill from lung disease and awaiting a lung transplant that never came. He arrived home from Cedars Sinai this week and fell into a coma. In recent days the icon who'd spent four decades in showbiz guidng the careers of some of its biggest stars was surrounded by everyone he loved: his clients and his friends and his colleagues. The untimely passing of this legendary talent agent at age 74 will cast a pall over Hollywood this holiday weekend. But his reputation as one of the greats will live on.

via www.deadline.com

Ben Fritz (LA Times): Signaling new direction, US Weekly veteran Janice Min takes over Hollywood Reporter

Her surprising appointment indicates a likely editorial repositioning for the Hollywood Reporter, which since its founding in 1930 has been a purely business publication focused on the ins-and-outs of movie studios and television networks. Like its rival, Daily Variety, the Reporter has struggled in the last few years as the studios have curtailed congratulatory and "for your consideration" awards ads that have been the trades' largest revenue source. In addition, they have lost circulation due to the shift of readers to the Web, where they face online competitors such as Deadline and The Wrap. In addition, The Times has increased its coverage of the entertainment industry.

Min was brought on by E5 Global Media, a private equity group that purchased the Reporter and six other publications including music industry trade Billboard from Nielsen Media late last year.

Though E5 executives have yet to detail their plans for the Reporter, the hiring of Min indicates that they plan to shift the brand's focus away from a pure business publication and more toward reporting on celebrities and drawing a broader base of consumer readers.

via latimesblogs.latimes.com

What a shame. (Not that Min's being brought in, but that it augers the shift described in the last line of the last paragraph, above.)

Steven Zeitchik (LA Times): Chris Nolan and J.J. Abrams trailers, under lock and key

When did trailers for action movies get good? And when did they go behind the velvet rope? Two new trailers for two secretive projects come attached to "Iron Man 2": for Christopher Nolan's "Inception" and J.J. Abrams' "Super 8." (Is there a movie on Earth that wouldn't want to be in that pre-Robert Downey Jr. slot? The rich indeed get richer.)

The "Inception" piece, featured above, is the better of the two, not least because it finally casts light on what the movie is about (dream policing and subconscious thievery, it turns out). You can watch it here, though it's meant to be discovered and watched only after one plays this online game. Movie marketers might wonder why in the name of Catwoman a studio would cut a trailer and then hide it inside a video game. But when your name is Chris Nolan, less is often more, and a velvet rope may be the best invitation of all.

via latimesblogs.latimes.com

I saw Iron Man 2 yesterday and experienced the recently remarked upon cavalcade of trailers. I was going to mention the ones for Inception and Super 8 today, and then caught the above Zeitchik post, which is more interesting than I'd planned to be.

I'll say this, though: Inception brought out my inner Nolan fanboy, but I'm reserving judgment on Super 8.  The Prince of Persia trailer was in front of IM2, too, and it looked pretty great.

KCRW's "The Business" (4/26/2010 episode)

I haven't posted an episode of KCRW's "The Business" in a while, and this week's was particularly worth reblogging.  The banter segment between Kim Masters and the LA Times' John Horn is good in and of itself (they chat about the future of the film futures exchanges, among other things), but the money segments are Kim's interview with Fox chief Kevin Reilly (it starts at the 6:48 mark).  Enjoy.

Schuyler Moore (c/o The Hollywood Reporter): Why support the boxoffice futures exchanges?

Why support the boxoffice futures exchanges?

Pro-trading commentator picks apart anti arguments

By Schuyler M. Moore

April 26, 2010, 11:00 PM ET

The parties lined up against the proposed boxoffice futures exchanges are legion: the MPAA, the Hollywood studios, IFTA, the guilds, Sens. Boxer and Feinstein, Mother Teresa and Save the Whales. Who possibly could dare to support it? Certainly not me. So, in an effort to support this Holy War, let me offer reasons why the blasphemous idea of "The Exchange" must be squelched in its infancy:

-- Only studios should be allowed to gamble on films! We need to save the public from themselves. And if the public wants to lose money betting on films, they should be forced to do it indirectly by buying stock of film companies or investing in slate deals. There is just something un-American about the public being able to cut out the middle man.

-- We also need to save the studios from themselves, because a studio might be tempted to manipulate the Exchange by going short on it then tanking its own film. Never mind that the studio likely would lose more on the film (and on its stock price) than it made on the Exchange. This ploy, as with suicide, should be illegal.

-- If a film is tracking badly on the Exchange, it will destroy the public's appetite for that film. Yes, the Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX.com) has been operating the identical exchange with play money for years with no untoward impact on attendance, and Intrade.com has been doing it with real money, again with no discernible consequence, but we must do what we can to protect the public from gossip and rumor mongering before a film is released. Indeed, we should go a step further and outlaw Ain't It Cool News and Rotten Tomatoes, just in case one or two people get prerelease buzz from those online sources. Yes, we know a film tracking well on the Exchange might increase attendance, but ...

-- In the interest of preserving lawyers and legal fees, studios should be required to hedge film risk inefficiently, as they always have done, rather than doing it efficiently on the Exchange. Why change a good thing? For years, studios have hedged film risk with complex strategies, including (a) co-productions between studios; (b) split-rights transactions, where all foreign rights are sold to a consortium of foreign distributors; (c) presales, where film rights are sold for upfront fixed payments (and less on the backend); and (d) slate financing transactions, where investors co-finance 50% of the cost of a slate of films for 50% of the profit. Never mind that some of these strategies are somewhat like selling off the family jewels as a hedge against volatility in the gold market; what matters is the legal fees, and they certainly accomplish that goal.

-- Heck, the studios couldn't hedge on the Exchange anyway because that would be like betting against their own films, which would trigger all kinds of anti-disparagement clauses in their contracts and other nasty things. (Uh, though I am not sure exactly why this argument doesn't apply to all the other methods of the hedging they do.)

-- There would be wild, rampant "insider" trading because everyone at the studios is able to accurately predict boxoffice results. Yes, I recognize that there is actually no legal concept of "insider" trading on a futures exchange, just as farmers aren't prohibited from trading corn futures as "insiders," and oil companies aren't prohibited from trading oil futures.

via www.hollywoodreporter.com

Hot tip: Check out Spec Chaser

When a creative executive friend of mine came up with the idea last Fall for a website that would provide coverage of spec scripts currently in the marketplace, I thought it was a brilliant idea and wished I had enough time to blatantly steal it and incorporate it into lifeonthebubble.com or itsonthegrid.com myself.  If you haven't heard of or checked out Spec Chaser (http://specchaser.wordpress.com), you should.  

There's a bit of overlap between the spec listings there and sites like blog.itsonthegrid.com, trackingb.com and tracking-board.com, but two things set Spec Chaser apart from us:

• A growing library of spec scripts currently on the market; and
• The periodic coverage they do on active spec scripts (as opposed to ScriptShadow, which seems to focus on projects already in active development).  

Since launching itsonthegrid.com last Fall I haven't had as much time to read specs as I'd like, and catching up on the ones I've missed by reading Spec Chaser's synopses has been helpful on more than one occasion.  I just wish they had about half a dozen more readers contributing to the effort so every single spec in the marketplace could get covered.  

Spec Chaser's proprietor also does excellent coverage and studio-style notes for a very reasonable fee (I know they're excellent because I've read a couple of examples), so if you're in the market for such a service, be sure to request a sample.

Spec Chaser:  http://specchaser.wordpress.com

Gizmodo: This Is Apple's Next iPhone

You are looking at Apple's next iPhone. It was found lost in a bar in Redwood City, camouflaged to look like an iPhone 3GS. We got it. We disassembled it. It's the real thing, and here are all the details.

via gizmodo.com

I'm still a Blackberry guy, but this new iPhone looks pretty badass. Plus I love the idea of a prototype getting into the wild. There's a move in there somewhere.

Hat tip to TheWrap.com for pointing to this article.

Risky Business Blog (The Hollywood Reporter): The Flixster Bullseye

via reporter.blogs.com

Pretty cool new feature on The Hollywood Reporter's Risky Business blog. They've partnered with Flixster to create the Flixster Bullseye, which aggregates data on consumer interest in upcoming movie releases. Here's today's.

The Onion: Sad Sack Purchases Screenwriting Software

Saying that he's had a few movie ideas kicking around for a while now, local resident and very depressing man Scott Norgren purchased screenwriting software Tuesday.

"I'm excited," said the 36-year-old sad sack, who bought the popular program Final Draft 8 at Best Buy during his work lunch break. "I figured that if I'm going to give screenwriting a try, I should have the right software."

"It's supposed to make the whole process easier," the poor sonofabitch added. "Like the outlining, for example."

via www.theonion.com

I love The Onion.  (Hat tip to Keith Barten for forwarding the link.)

New Benderspink Address

As of this week:

Benderspink
5870 W. Jefferson Blvd, Studio E
Los Angeles, CA  90016

Jessica Guynn & John Horn (LA Times): Twitter - A new box-office oracle?

Sitaram Asur and Bernardo Huberman, two social computing scientists at HP Labs in Palo Alto, contend that computational formulas using Twitter feeds can predict with as much as 97.3% accuracy how a movie will perform in its first weekend of release.

That far surpasses the traditional survey-based "tracking" reports that studios have long relied upon to forecast movie ticket sales, or the popular online site Hollywood Stock Exchange that lets users wager on their box-office predictions with pretend money.

The computer models based on Twitter chatter could signal a Merlin-like tool for Hollywood, which has long struggled to come up with fail-safe ways to forecast how movies will do at the box office. Among other things, the research could help studios decide whether to make last-minute tweaks to advertising campaigns or scale back and cut their losses.

Although the studios can often predict some weekend takes within 10% of the actual total, their results can fall short on films that target kids or teen fanboys, or are outliers like the recent Oscar winner "The Blind Side."

The researchers used the rate at which movies were mentioned in Twitter updates to predict first-weekend box-office returns; the sentiment of the tweets -- positive, neutral or negative -- also accurately predicted second weekend, they said.

via www.latimes.com

Missed this last Friday...