Two of the Eastern seaboard states hardest hit by Hurricane Irene remarkably emerged relatively unscathed when it came to their filmmaking business. That was the word from Aaron Syrett and Joe Bookchin, the film commissioners of North Carolina and Vermont, respectively.
Syrett noted, “All productions are up and running. Two productions took a day off on Friday (8/26) as a precaution in preparations for the storm….There wasn’t any damage to our studio facilities. Business as usual today.”
While footage of significant flooding in parts of Vermont was prevalent in news coverage, entertainment filming activity hasn’t been adversely affected as of yet, according to Bookchin. “New information is still coming in–but there are no major setbacks that I know of so far,” he reported.
Bookchin related that the biggest Irene-triggered entertainment/arts casualty in Vermont has to this point has been a new stage musical, Saint-Ex, which was continuing its run at The Weston Playhouse in the city of Weston. The facility was overrun this past Sunday with between six and 12 feet of water in various lower levels of the theater. The grand piano used for the show was destroyed when the orchestra pit was flooded. The overflow was from the nearby West River.
Escaping the worst of Irene, Washington, D.C. still had plans scrapped for what was to have been Sunday’s dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial. Extensive filming of the event was scheduled, including a documentary which was postponed.
Irene’s impact was also felt at last weekend’s box office with people all along the East Coast holed up in their residences. Initial estimates are that domestic movie theater receipts dropped some 20 percent due to Irene.
TikTok’s Fate Arrives At Supreme Court; Arguments Center On Free Speech and National Security
In one of the most important cases of the social media age, free speech and national security collide at the Supreme Court on Friday in arguments over the fate of TikTok, a wildly popular digital platform that roughly half the people in the United States use for entertainment and information.
TikTok says it plans to shut down the social media site in the U.S. by Jan. 19 unless the Supreme Court strikes down or otherwise delays the effective date of a law aimed at forcing TikTok's sale by its Chinese parent company.
Working on a tight deadline, the justices also have before them a plea from President-elect Donald Trump, who has dropped his earlier support for a ban, to give him and his new administration time to reach a "political resolution" and avoid deciding the case. It's unclear if the court will take the Republican president-elect's views — a highly unusual attempt to influence a case — into account.
TikTok and China-based ByteDance, as well as content creators and users, argue the law is a dramatic violation of the Constitution's free speech guarantee.
"Rarely if ever has the court confronted a free-speech case that matters to so many people," lawyers for the users and content creators wrote. Content creators are anxiously awaiting a decision that could upend their livelihoods and are eyeing other platforms.
The case represents another example of the court being asked to rule about a medium with which the justices have acknowledged they have little familiarity or expertise, though they often weigh in on meaty issues involving restrictions on speech.
The Biden administration, defending the law that President Joe Biden signed in April after it was approved by wide bipartisan majorities in Congress, contends that... Read More