Dispute between Broadcasters and Cable and Pay-Television Providers
The already existing dispute betweenbroadcasters and cable and pay-television providers over whether TV station owners can yank their channels during periodic fee disputes was further investigated by the Federal CommunicationsCommission, this Friday.
The reviews of the general public were sought after by the FCC about whether it should think about retransmission consent rules to avert fee disputes from ensuing blackouts of popular channels.
The agency is only considering the ideas and is in no mood to change the rules. Some of the pay-TV operators including Dish Network, Time WarnerCable Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., and Charter Communications, who asked FCC to change its rules for negotiating the disputes. More broadcastersare seeking higher fees for their signals. They should be prevented by the regulators from pulling their channels when the negotiation is going on.
http://topnews.us/content/213786-dispute-between-broadcasters-and-cable-and-pay-television-providers
Music Biz Insiders Say Sony-Jackson Deal Makes Sense
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) – The magnitude of Sony Music Entertainment’s landmark recording contract with the estate of Michael Jackson raises an inevitable question: Is it a smart deal for the label?
Given Jackson’s superstar status, his influential creative legacy and the market’s seemingly insatiable appetite for all things MJ, the consensus of executives who handle works of other deceased music stars is an overwhelming “yes.”
Under the contract, which guarantees the estate between $200 million and $250 million, Sony will issue 10 releases of Jackson’s music through 2017, with the double-CD “This Is It” soundtrack counting as the first of these. Already in the pipeline is the planned November release of a collection of previously unreleased tracks and a 2011 reissue of Jackson’s seminal 1979 Epic album, “Off the Wall.”
The Jackson/Sony deal eclipses such recent headline-making unions as Live NationEntertainment’s pacts with Madonna and Jay-Z, pegged at $120 million and $150 million, respectively. And it places Jackson among a select group of artists who posthumously remain major wage earners: Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and Jimi Hendrix, whose new album of unreleased material, “Valleys of Neptune,” debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200.
The 3D fad in movies…and when it will end
It’s easy to spot the new trend in movies these days: people are always kicking the back of my chair while they text on their iPhones. Besides these unfortunate occurrences, more and more studios are turning to the 3D format to make boatloads of cash.
You might not have seen it. You might not plan to see it, and you might be sick of James Cameron’s blue cat-like aliens planted all over the place, but there is no denying that Avatar blasted the movie industry like an atom bomb. To date, in the US alone, the movie has earned more than $730 million dollars. Think about that number for a minute. Yes I know the premium price of 3D tickets inflated it, but that number is still remarkable for a genre film almost three hours long.
In the wake of the explosion, more studios like Warner Brothers and Lionsgate are scrambling to rotoscope newly made movies into the 3D format. The thing is, when studios take an existing movie and then apply the 3D process over it on the back end, the results aren’t nearly as spectacular as movies that were filmed with 3D cameras. Check out this excerpt from an article entitled “The Movie Studios’ Big 3D Scam” at Gizmodo.com:
“The process of making a movie 3D after it was shot is a complicated and time consuming process but can be somewhat convincing. The problem is it will never reflect the same results as if you were filming using two cameras, simultaneously, from slightly different perspectives. Endless rotoscoping provides layers that can be separated to fake a different perspective for the second eye, but that’s what it looks like, layers. So yes, you can push things away and pull things forward and enhance the depth, but the content within each layer has no depth.”
http://www.bizmology.com/2010/03/19/the-3d-fad-in-movies-and-when-it-will-end/
This Way There Be Dragons
AT first glance “How to Train Your Dragon,” the new action-adventure film from DreamWorks Animation based on the whimsical children’s book by Cressida Cowell, does not seem to share much with the Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old Men” or M. Night Shyamalan’s “Village.” But a closer look reveals some similarities. From washed-out landscapes to minimally lighted rooms, the Nordic locations in “Dragon” feel more lived in and rough edged — more realistic — than one typically finds in animation. This comes from the influence of an outsider, the Oscar-nominated cinematographerRoger Deakins. Best known for his work on “A Beautiful Mind,” “The Shawshank Redemption” and Coen brothers’ films, Mr. Deakins had little experience working in animation, save for some consulting on “Wall-E.” But as the co-directors of “Dragon,” Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders (“Lilo & Stitch”), were thinking of a way to distinguish their film from other animated work, they decided to bring in someone who could see light in a different way. Below Mr. Deakins, Mr. DeBlois and Mr. Sanders discuss how they achieved the film’s look.
[Movies] DC Comic Movies to Replace Harry Potter Franchise
Once it’s over…
With the Harry Potter franchise set to end in July 2011, Warner Bros. head man Alan Horn is looking to replace the young wizard with DC superheroes. He was reported as saying:
“As we ease out of Harry Potter, we hope to bring you the excitement of the DC [Comics] library!”
There were no specific titles mentioned. However, Horn also announced that all Warner Bros. “tentpole” movies going forward will be released in 3D, including 5films this year and 9 more next year. Superman and Batman 3 are both on that list.
