TV
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“I Have Four Days to Edit My Director’s Cut”: Bethany Rooney on Directing TV
I first became aware of director Bethany Rooney’s work via her episodes of two of the most visually arresting series on network television, Arrow and The Originals. On each of these series – specifically, the “State vs Queen” episode of Arrow and the “When the Levee Breaks” episode of The Originals – Rooney exhibited a sophisticated sense of composition, lighting, and color surpassed only by her deft hand with actors. As I dug further into Rooney’s oeuvre while catching up on several other series this fall, I learned that those two shows were the rule, not the exception — performers […]
by Jim Hemphill on Nov 17, 2015 -
Is TV Killing Indie Film?
Is TV usurping independent film? That was one of the main takeaways in a recent Filmmaker Magazine article written by producer Mike S. Ryan (“TV is Not the New Film”). With veteran producers, writers and directors heading to HBO, Netflix and Amazon in droves; with audiences affixed to the latest show recaps; and with film festival programmers dedicating more slots to episodic storytelling, it sure seems so. But if you talk to working indie-film professionals, the question appears to be slightly off the mark. Maybe we shouldn’t be asking whether long-form storytelling is supplanting indie film, but how it’s enabling […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Oct 28, 2015 -
The Screen Matters
The way we watch TV shows is changing. Whether one is watching a movie or other program over a TV set, a PC or a mobile device, the size of the display screen matters in terms of a viewer’s appreciation of a show. A recent study by two ad service firms, YuMe and IPG Media Lab (IPG Mediabrands), analyzes consumer viewing experiences, comparing four TV screens – traditional TV, online TV, a PC and a smartphone. As it reports, “while the size of the video screen did drive more excitement, variables such as ad clutter, creative content, and context had […]
by David Rosen on Sep 19, 2012 -
WHAT’S HAPPENING, MR. JONES?
In Bob Dylan’s 1965 song “Ballad of a Thin Man,” he famously observes: “Something is happening here/But you don’t know what it is/Do you, Mr. Jones?” Well, something is sure happening to the U.S. movie entertainment business and nobody seems to know what it is. Most disturbing, the MPAA reports box office ticket sales have been declining for the last decade and a leading market research firm, Digital Entertainment Group, reported DVD sales continue to shrink. Making matters more trying, there has been no comparable increase in web streaming revenues to make up the difference. Adding to this bleak picture, […]
by David Rosen on Aug 14, 2012 -
THIS IS YOUR PILOT SPEAKING
Borys Kit has a good article in the Hollywood Reporter discussing the influx of feature directors to the TV world, noting that this pilot season Spike Lee, Jim Mangold, F. Gary Gray and others are completing small-screen work. “The perception that TV was a sitcom world and that features provided a more intellectual medium — that distinction is not necessarily the case anymore,” said attorney Gregg Gellman of Barnes Morris Klein Mark Yorn Barnes & Levine, whose crossover clients have included directors like Gavin O’Connor (“Miracle”). With more and more scripts tackling concepts that challenge traditional formats and genres, feature […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 14, 2006 -
MONDAY MORNING WITH KENT JONES
It’s Monday morning and I’ll allow myself one posting based on the a.m.’s quick scan of what’s out there on the web. The choices? Paris Hilton’s T-Mobile pager records and phone book… or perhaps, this engaging interview with our friend, the author, critic and programmer Kent Jones. appearing in Gothamist. From the piece: “I mean, I really, really hate TV — the commercials, the ‘hand-held’ camera, the music, the personalities of the newscasters. I’ve given things like Six Feet Under and The Sopranos a try, and I see their merits but they seem like canned art to me — stuff […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 21, 2005 -
DESPERATE CRITICS
A TV show used to be many years in syndication before it became critical fodder for academics and intellectuals. But as it has swiftly climbed the ratings ladders, Desperate Housewives has also attracted notice from the sorts of writers who wouldn’t normally stoop to covering TV. Like Germaine Greer. Here’s the author of The Female Eunuch on the hit ABC show, as reviewed in The Guardian: “The series has nothing to say about the vicissitudes of the average or even the well-to-do American stay-at-home wife; it is neither feminist, nor pro-feminist nor proto-feminist nor post-feminist. Feminism has as little to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 5, 2005 -
CELLUAR ENTERTAINMENT
Via Variety comes this interesting subscription-only piece announcing a new spin-off for Fox’s espionage TV series 24 which reachers viewers via cell-phone. Writes Josef Adalian, “In a first-of-its-kind deal for a U.S. TV studio, 20th Century Fox TV has greenlit production of a live-action 24 spinoff skein that will be produced exclusively for cell phone users. Dubbed 24: Conspiracy, the show — featuring original characters separate from the Fox TV skein — will unfold over 24 roughly one-minute episodes; one seg will be downloaded to subscribers’ phones every week.” Premiering in the U.K., where cell phone use and 3G technology […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 10, 2004
