TV / Film News

FCC Approves New, Barred Window for Pay-TV Movies

Source: Michael Ricci
May 10, 2010

Hollywood won another incremental battle Friday in its war on digital piracy, persuading the Federal Communications Commission to approve a new approach to protecting movies on cable and satellite TV systems.

The likely result is that some, but not all, pay-TV subscribers will be able to pay a premium to watch a movie at home, in high definition, before it comes out on disc. My colleague Richard Verrier wrote about the order for the Company Town blog, focusing on the ...

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Anita O'Day Biopic in Development

Source: All About Jazz
May 8, 2010

Producer Sheri Howell is developing a biopic of jazz singer Anita O'Day through Los Angeles-based 47 Pictures Inc.

Howell, who spent over a decade as an MTV exec, has optioned the life rights to O'Day, who died three years ago at the age of 87. The documentary “Anita O'Day: Life of a Jazz Singer" received a 2010 Grammy nomination for longform music video.

O'Day performed with the big bands of Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton, teamed with Charlie Parker and ...

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FCC Paves Way for Studios to Push Movies into the Home, Rattling Theaters

Source: Michael Ricci
May 8, 2010

Federal regulators have granted a controversial waiver to the Hollywood studios that clears the way for them to show first-run movies in the home shortly after -- or even during -- their release in theaters.

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday granted a petition from the Motion Picture Assn. of America, the chief lobbying group for the major studios, that would permit for a limited-period use of “selectable output control" technology for watching movies in the home. The technology disables ...

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Geek the Beatles: 'Let It Be' Recombined Reality Bites

Source: All About Jazz
May 8, 2010

Forty years ago, Let It Be closed out a decade of The Beatles artistic and technological influence. Its a period that has yet to be matched in popular culture.

Wired.com will explore the bands lasting impact in a new occasional series called Geek The Beatles, anchored to the bands momentous anniversaries in 2010. Let It Be, released May 8, 1970, shortly after the band members called it quits, transformed The Beatles from a functioning band into a dysfunctional multimedia brand. ...

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Judge Orders 'Crude' Filmmaker to Turn over Footage

Source: All About Jazz
May 7, 2010

A federal judge ordered a documentary filmmaker Thursday to turn over about 600 hours of raw footage from a film about a court fight over whether Chevron Corp. owes billions of dollars in damages for oil contamination in Ecuador.

U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said filmmaker Joseph Berlinger must turn over the outtakes from the film Crude, which was released last year, to lawyers for Chevron. Kaplan said Berlinger could not use the First Amendment to shield himself from ...

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Music Videos Make a Comeback -- And Los Angeles Directors Are at the Forefront

Source: All About Jazz
May 7, 2010

As proven on this blog and many others last week, music videos like M.I.A.'s violent tale of ginger genocide are one of the few elements of the music business that still has the power to stir conversation.

In an article this week, New York Magazine tracks how the medium recovered from its early aughts slump. We'll give you a little hint: Something called YouTube is largely responsible. That, and OK Go. It's been a long time since MTV lived up ...

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Bruce Warila: Every Major Artist is Failing as an Independent Media Channel and What to Do About It

Source: HypeBot
May 7, 2010

This guest post from music tech entrepreneur and philosopher Bruce Warila (@brucewarila) is excerpted from a piece on the informative Music Think Tank blog.

With minimal exceptions (taylorswift.com at #14,077), there are 20,000 websites that rank ahead of almost every artist website on earth. Why is it that sites like underjams.com, mudcat.org, museum.tv and twenty thousand other sites are more popular than the websites run by U2, DMB or Coldplay?

"Sound of the Soul" Premieres on Link TV May 16

Source: Michael Ricci
May 6, 2010

New York, NY: Link TV is proud to announce the Link TV premiere of Sound of the Soul, a vivid, multi-layered portrait of both of an open-minded Arab city and the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music, an extraordinary annual world music event that invites Muslim, Christian and Jewish men and women to perform in public at the only gathering of its kind in the Arab world. Sound of the Soul, featuring renowned musicians including Nass El Ghiwane, Anuna, Katia ...

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