October 21, 2011

Official: NBC Sports relocating to Connecticut
By Stephen Singer
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – NBC Sports will move from New York City to Stamford to take advantage of tax breaks, adding to a growing film and TV presence in the southwestern Connecticut city, a state official said Friday.
    The official said that the deal would be part of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s signature development program. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Malloy and Democratic leaders of the legislature hope to announce a deal next week.
    Chris McCloskey, a spokesman for NBC Sports, and a spokeswoman for Malloy declined to comment.
    NBC Sports and the legislature still have to finalize details on the tax credits. The deal could bring hundreds of jobs, the official said.
    Malloy’s initiative is intended to consolidate various tax credits to draw five businesses that invest $25 million in Connecticut and create a total of 1,000 jobs over five years.
    So far, he has struck deals with insurer Cigna, ESPN and the online ticket exchange TicketNetwork Inc. The three companies already operate in Connecticut, but Cigna agreed to move its headquarters from Philadelphia. Malloy said in August when the ESPN deal was announced that negotiating to bring companies from outside Connecticut is more complicated because office and manufacturing space must be acquired.
    Beginning in the 1970s, Stamford began drawing corporations from New York City, just 35 miles to the south. More recently, it has branched out into entertainment, luring production companies with lower taxes and more space than producers can find in New York.
    Entertainment companies in Stamford include WWE, TV productions featuring Jerry Springer, Steve Wilkos and Maury Povich, and the sports network Versus.
    “We have a real cluster and it’s growing,” said Kevin Segalla, chief executive of the Connecticut Film Center, a Stamford company that provides production and financial services and facilities for the film and TV industries.

Dutch gangster loses bid to block Heineken film
AMSTERDAM (AP) – A court has rejected a suit brought by one of the Netherlands’ best-known gangsters seeking to block the release of a film about the 1983 kidnapping of beer tycoon Freddy Heineken.
    Willem Holleeder was sentenced to 11 years for his role in kidnapping Heineken and holding him for three weeks until his family paid a $36 million ransom.
    Holleeder claimed the movie, “The Heineken Kidnapping,” starring Rutger Hauer as the victim, would damage his image by making him appear more sadistic than he really is.
    Judge Wil Tonkens rejected his suit Friday and will publish her reasoning Oct. 28.
    Lawyers for producers IDTV film had argued the movie is a fictionalized version of events, and Holleeder has little reputation left to lose. (more details in related story below)

John Singleton sues Paramount for $20 millionLOS ANGELES (AP) – Director and producer John Singleton is suing Paramount Pictures and MTV Films for at least $20 million, claiming fraud and breach of contract.
    In a complaint filed Wednesday in Los Angeles, Singleton claims the studios failed to uphold an agreement connected with the distribution rights to 2005’s “Hustle & Flow.” The lawsuit claims the studios promised to finance and distribute two future Singleton productions within five years but added restrictions when he submitted the projects.
    Paramount said in a statement Wednesday that it “was hoping that John Singleton would produce two more pictures before his agreement with our studio ended in 2010, but that did not happen. Instead, he went on to direct ‘Abduction’ for Lions Gate.”
    Singleton attorney Martin Singer responded by saying that the director’s work on “Abduction” began after the Paramount deal expired.
    “For Paramount to try to make his work on that film an issue now – having never raised it before – is typical of the lengths to which the studio will go in its desperate attempt to evade its legal and moral responsibilities,” Singer said in a statement Thursday.
    Singleton is demanding a jury trial. Paramount says the suit has no merit.

SMPTE Wins 2 EmmysThe Society has won two 2011 Technology & Engineering Emmy® Awards from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences!
    The  awards recognize SMPTE’s pioneering work in: Local cable ad-insertion technologies that now help broadcast facilities — particularly cable head ends and unattended stations — to switch as easily between digital programming and advertising as they did with similar materials in the analog domain. And, the creation of an end-to-end solution for describing a program’s aspect ratio and to allow users to control the ratio displayed.

New Study: Social Media has Outsized Impact on Sales and Brand PerceptionNEW YORK — According to final results from a new Ogilvy-ChatThreads study of restaurant consumers, individuals exposed to social content are significantly more likely to increase their spending and consumption than those who aren’t exposed.  

There was a 2-7x greater likelihood of higher spending or consumption depending on the media encountered by the study group.  The sales impact was most pervasive when social content was combined with other types of media such as PR, out-of-home and TV.
    Additionally, out of over 20 channels studied, social content exposure was associated with the largest shift in brand perception during a 7-day period.
    Despite these strong social content impact findings, consumers are seeing relatively little branded social content during their daily routine.   Only 24% of the study group reported exposure to social content, compared to a 69% exposure rate to TV ads. 
    According to Irfan Kamal, SVP Digital/Social, Ogilvy, “Much of the work to date has looked at direct channel impacts; for example, do direct clicks from a social media site result in sales?  This study of restaurant consumers attempts to understand the more complex factors that lead to consumer purchase and perception changes.  We found that in the real world, social content exposure – by itself and more broadly when combined with other types of media exposure such as out-of-home, PR or TV ads – is linked with 2-7x higher likelihood of consumption and actual spend increases.  And, social content exposure alone is associated with the largest shift in week-to-week brand perception.”
    This Integrated Social Media Sales Impact study is from Ogilvy and ChatThreads.  Data was collected between January and May 2011.  The final report is available at: www.slideshare.net/360digitalinfluence.

Photographer who captured rock’s golden age dies
WOODSTOCK, N.Y. (AP) – Photographer Barry Feinstein, who captured behind-the-scenes images from rock’s golden age and shot iconic album covers for Bob Dylan and George Harrison, died in upstate New York on Thursday. He was 80.
    Agent Dave Brolan said Feinstein, who lived in Woodstock, suffered various ailments and was hospitalized with an infection.
    Feinstein’s best known images include the picture of a skinny, side-glancing Dylan on the cover of 1964’s “The Times They Are A-Changin'” and of Harrison sitting among garden gnomes on his 1970 solo album, “All Things Must Pass.” But Feinstein had varied experiences that ranged from working as an assistant at Columbia Pictures, photographing Hollywood stars like Steve McQueen and Judy Garland and later shooting rock royalty of the 1960s and 1970s. He also made films.
    Feinstein was friends with Dylan’s early manager Albert Grossman. Brolan said the photographer got to know the rising music star on a long ride from Denver to New York to deliver a Rolls Royce to Grossman.
    Feinstein’s pictures gave an insider’s view of Dylan’s world. One well-known shot shows Dylan, with dark sunglasses and cigarette, in the back seat of a limousine with fans pressing their faces against the window.
    Feinstein branched out to other rock work, shooting album covers for Janis Joplin’s “Pearl” and for Eric Clapton, among many others. Despite his proximity to big stars, Brolan said Feinstein never betrayed their confidence.
    “Barry would never tell you about anyone. He’d never tell you a Dylan story or anything personal. He would never talk about himself,” Brolan said. “It was a hard push to get him to say anything about his work. He’d just say, ‘Look at the pictures, good luck.'”
    “Hollywood Foto-Rhetoric,” a book of Feinstein’s evocative old Hollywood pictures and poems Dylan wrote in the early 1960s to accompany the images, was published in 2008.
    Feinstein’s still photographs were used in Martin Scorsese’s documentaries on Dylan and Harrison.
    He is survived by wife Judith Jamieson and two children from previous marriages.

Tyler Perry honored by Sharpton organization
Nekesa Mumbi Moody, Music Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Tyler Perry has gotten plenty of criticism from those who feel his popular movies like “Madea’s Family Reunion” border on buffoonery and don’t reflect well on the black community.
    But on Wednesday night, the filmmaker was honored by the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. The civil rights leader lashed out at Perry’s black detractors, calling them “proper Negroes” who don’t understand regular black folk.
    “This man never apologized for who we were,” said Sharpton, who is also a cable TV host, at his second annual Triumph Awards.
    Sharpton said Perry has given work to many black actors who have been ignored by Hollywood, and has created an empire on his own terms: “The ultimate pride is where you don’t have to bend and adjust for others to accept you. … He didn’t go mainstream, he brought mainstream to us.”
    Perry was given the Chairman’s Award. Also honored: Chris Rock and his wife, Malaak, and California’s attorney general, Kamala Harris. Perry – whose films include “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” ”Why Did I Get Married?” and “Daddy’s Little Girls” – was recently named by Forbes magazine as the highest-earning man in Hollywood. He writes, directs and produces his films and sometimes stars in them; he’s best known for his Madea character, the foul-mouthed, sassy grandmother who has appeared in many of his movies.
    He is also responsible for the TBS comedy show “House of Payne.”
    But Perry’s films rarely get critical acclaim, and some in the black community have accused him of perpetuating stereotypes.
    Perry acknowledged his detractors as he thanked Sharpton for the award.

Gangster sues to stop film on Heineken kidnapping
By Toby Sterling
AMSTERDAM (AP) – One of the Netherlands’ best-known gangsters went to court Thursday to stop the release of a film about the 1983 kidnapping and ransom of beer tycoon Freddy Heineken, in which he played a key role, claiming it misrepresents him.
    Willem Holleeder, dubbed “The Nose” in the Dutch media, was sentenced to 11 years for his part in Heineken’s ordeal in 1986. Holleeder sued filmmakers from his cell in the high-security prison where he is serving a new nine-year sentence in an unrelated extortion case, and the Justice Ministry did not grant him leave to appear in the courtroom.
    Producer IDTV Film lawyer Jens van den Brink argued the Dutch-language movie “The Heineken Kidnapping,” which cost euro4.7 million ($6.4 million) to make and stars Rutger Hauer as Heineken, is a fictionalized version of events. He said halting it days before its scheduled Oct. 24 opening in Amsterdam would be financially ruinous.
    Holleeder, now 53, is not named in the movie, and filmmakers merged his character with that of another of the four real-life kidnappers – though one of the actors resembles Holleeder physically, right down to the prominent nose that prompted his nickname.
    Holleeder’s lawyers say the movie portrays the kidnappers as more violent than they actually were, and it will stymie Holleeder’s attempts to reintegrate with society once he is released. They say he wants to be known for what he actually did, not as the character in the movie.
    In an interview with Dutch press agency ANP, the film’s director Maarten Treurniet said Holleeder’s suit has no merit.
    “In my eyes, he suffered the bulk of the damage to his reputation when he kidnapped Heineken: this is peanuts by comparison,” Treurniet said. He said viewers will have more sympathy for the character that most resembles Holleeder than he deserves.
    Court spokeswoman Annemieke Jeuring said judges will rule Friday.
    An American film based on the kidnapping also is under negotiation.
    Heineken, who built his family company from a small concern into the world’s third-largest brewer, was kidnapped on a Wednesday evening as he left his office with his chauffeur. Both were kept in soundproof cells in a warehouse for three weeks.
    The country was captivated as the kidnappers released voice recordings of the victims and communicated with police using coded messages in newspapers. They demanded a ransom and developed a convoluted plan for dropping off the money without being caught.
    Heineken was rescued by police on a tip after the kidnappers had received the ransom of 35 million guilders – worth euro25 million or $36 million in today’s terms.
    After the kidnapping, Heineken became much more reclusive and rarely appeared in public. He was thought to be the country’s richest man when he died of pneumonia in 2002 with an estimated personal fortune of $3.6 billion.
    The kidnappers were all eventually arrested and served varying prison terms, though Holleeder had escaped to Paris until he was captured. Around 20 percent of the ransom money was never recovered. Supporters threw Holleeder a champagne-soaked bash at Amsterdam’s posh Hilton hotel the day he was released in 1992.
    Holleeder was convicted again in 2007, this time for leading a criminal organization and extorting money from three people. One of his extortion victims, real estate magnate Willem Enstra, told police Holleeder had ordered as many as 25 murders. Enstra was himself killed in 2004 in a case that remains unsolved.
    Holleeder has never been charged with any slayings.

MTV sets dates for Video Music and Movie Awards
NEW YORK (AP) – MTV has set the dates for next year’s MTV Movie and Video Music Awards.
    The MTV Movie Awards will air live from Los Angeles on June 3.
    After an August date in Los Angeles this year, the VMAs will move to Sept. 9. A host city hasn’t been announced. The show will also air live on the network.
    The announcement was made Thursday.
    This year’s VMAs drew an audience of 12.44 million people, which gave MTV its biggest audience since 1993.

‘Sons of Anarchy’ app to sell goods during show
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Watching organized crime shows apparently has a way of bringing out people’s fashion sense.
    News Corp.’s pay TV channel FX is teaming up with sister movie studio 20th Century Fox on an iPad app that will follow along during airings of the hit show “Sons of Anarchy” and offer up ways to buy products that appear on screen.
    Some of the items include “Gimme Props Reaper Gold Rings,” which are exact replicas of ones used in the biker gang show, and boot-cut jeans from Seven For All Mankind.
    The app, called “SOA Gear,” is set to launch on Nov. 1, the same day that the ninth episode of the current fourth season will air on TV. The app will also work with Blu-ray discs of season three.
    The app follows along by picking up on audio clues in the show, or through a timer that the user can start when the show begins. Alternatively, users can flip through manually.
   “Sons of Anarchy” is having its best season yet, drawing on average 5.8 million viewers per new episode, up about 30 percent from the previous season.
    FX Networks’ President John Landgraf said in a statement that the app will provide loyal fans new ways to interact and expand their association with the show.

Hollywood groups unite behind Iranian filmmakersLOS ANGELES (AP) – Hollywood organizations and entertainment unions are uniting in support of filmmakers jailed in Iran.
    The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, American Society of Cinematographers, International Documentary Association and American Cinema Editors released statements Wednesday condemning the arrests of six independent filmmakers in Iran last month. The groups were joined by guilds representing directors, writers, actors and producers.
    The coalition also called for the release of other artists arrested for making movies.
    Earlier this week, an Iranian actress was sentenced to one year in prison and 90 lashes for her role in a film critical of the Iranian government.
    Hollywood filmmaking groups urged Iranian officials “to remember that these are artists, not political enemies, (and) they have, as all free people do, the right to hold and express opinions.”

The top iPhone and iPad apps on App StoreApp Store Official Charts for the week ending Oct. 17, 2011:

Top Paid iPhone Apps:

1. Words with Friends (Newtoy Inc.)
2. Angry Birds (Clickgamer.com)
3. Where’s My Water? (Disney)
4. Fruit Ninja (Halfbrick Studios)
5. Camera+ (tap tap tap)
6. Scribblenauts Remix (Warner Bros.)
7. Angry Birds Seasons (Rovio Mobile Ltd.)
8. Flashlight (i4software)
9. Hanging With Friends (Zynga)
10. My Secret Folder (Bright Artificial Intelligence Ltd)

Jazz, TV composer Pete Rugolo dies at 95LOS ANGELES (AP) – Pete Rugolo, an Emmy- and Grammy-winning composer and arranger who worked with greats such as Miles Davis and Benny Goodman, has died. He was 95.
    A family spokeswoman says Rugolo died Sunday in the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles.
    Rugolo was chief arranger for Stan Kenton’s orchestra after World War II, helping develop its progressive jazz sound.
    He later was musical director for Capitol Records, where he signed Peggy Lee, Mel Torme and others. He produced the Miles Davis “Birth of the Cool” sessions and Harry Belafonte’s first singles.
    In the 1950s, he got into the movie and TV business while also recording his own albums. He co-wrote the theme for TV’s “The Fugitive” and wrote themes or other music for many shows, including “Run for Your Life.”

Film Society program director to step down
NEW YORK (AP) – Richard Pena, the program director at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, plans to step down after the 2012 New York Film Festival.
    Dan Stern, president of the Film Society’s board of directors, made the announcement Sunday night just before the festival-closing screening of Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants.”
    Pena, 58, has been program director and chairman of the festival selection committee at the Film Society since 1988. His final festival will be the Film Society’s 50th.
    “Heading into the fiftieth anniversary of the festival, it seems a perfect time for a transition, both for me personally and for the organization,” Pena said. “Working at the Film Society has been beyond a dream come true, but in the years left for me, I would like to possibly explore other areas of interest, both within and beyond the cinema.”
    Stern said Pena will help Lincoln Center create a new educational initiative at the Film Society.
    Rose Kuo, who became the Film Society’s executive director last year, called Pena “a shining light” who guided the Film Society’s discovery of directors like Pedro Almodovar, Mike Leigh, Lars Von Trier, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Hong Sang Soo.
    No successor to Pena, who also teaches film at Columbia University, has been named.

Pernilla August wins Nordic film prizeCOPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) – Sweden’s Pernilla August has won the Nordic Council Film Prize for “Beyond,” her feature debut as a director.
    August and co-writer Lolita Ray on Monday accepted the 350,000 kroner ($65,200) award – the biggest film prize in the Nordic region – from British actress Dame Helen Mirren, the jury’s honorary chairwoman.
    The film, which tells the story of woman tormented by childhood memories of growing up with alcoholic parents, is also Sweden’s candidate for Best Foreign Language Film at next year’s Oscars.
    As an actress, August is best known for playing the mother of Swedish movie great Ingmar Bergman in his biographical movie “Best Intentions.” She also made an appearance in “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.”

Former Hollywood super-agent Mengers diesLOS ANGELES (AP) – Sue Mengers, a former Hollywood super-agent whose clients included Barbra Streisand, Cher, Michael Caine and Joan Collins, has died. Mengers claimed to be 78, though some sources listed her age as 81.
    Mengers died Saturday at her Beverly Hills home in the company of friends that included actress Ali MacGraw, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter reported in an item on the magazine’s Web site Sunday. Carter, who had known Mengers for almost 20 years, wrote that her death followed a series of small strokes.
    After clerical jobs with MCA and William Morris talent agencies, Mengers became an agent in 1967 for Creative Management Agency, which later became International Creative Management. She left in 1986 and returned briefly to William Morris two years later before permanently retiring.

Environmental Media Association honors green shows
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) – The Environmental Media Association has recognized six Hollywood productions for spreading the word about going green.
    Warner Bros.’ animated “Yogi Bear” and the documentary “Revenge of the Electric Car” were honored Saturday night at the group’s 21st anniversary party and awards ceremony at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, Calif.
    TV’s “Futurama,” ”CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” ”HGTV Green Home 2011,” ”Real Time with Bill Maher” and the childrens’ show “Bubble Guppies” also won awards for raising awareness about environmental issues.
    Justin Timberlake accepted EMA’s Futures Award for his ecological efforts, which include advocacy for environmental issues, greening his concert tours and the eco-friendly golf course he owns near Memphis.

Iranian, Filipino claim top Asian film awardsBy Sam Kim
BUSAN, South Korea (AP) – An Iranian film and a Philippine one have shared the top awards for Asian productions at the region’s largest film event.
    Organizers of the Busan International Film Festival said Friday in a statement that the $30,000 New Currents Awards each went to Iranian director Morteza Farshbaf’s “Mourning” and Philippine director Loy Arcenas’s “Nino.”
    “Mourning” is about a deaf couple and their orphaned nephew while “Nino” is about a family gripped by greed.
    While describing Farshbaf’s film as a “confident attempt to create a new film language that is disturbing at times and heartwarming,” organizers said that Arcenas has shown “a new rise of modern day values” through his work.
    In the Flash Forward section – which awards non-Asian directors – Italy’s Guido Lombardi claimed the top honor with “LA-BAS-A Criminal Education,” which the organizers have described as “a multilayered, simply told story of the contemporary issue of migration.” Lombardi also took away $30,000.
    The nine-day film festival began last Thursday with a South Korean romance. On Friday it closed with veteran Japanese director Masato Harada’s “Chronicle of My Mother,” a story about a mother who slowly loses her memory and her repentant son.
    This year marked the first time that the festival has been conducted without the leadership of its charismatic founder Kim Dong-ho, who stepped down last year amid health worries. The 16th edition also opened a new era for the event by being held in a lavish multiplex that cost $156 million to build.
    Having opened recently, the showpiece Busan Cinema Center revealed structural problems on the last day of the event when rainwater leaked through at least a dozen cracks – worrying movie fans and prompting organizers to express regret and convene an emergency meeting.
    South Korean movie fans Lee Yong-beom and Cho Ho-yeon expressed anxiety after they saw water profusely leaking from a steel corridor that hangs above the ground in the western section of the complex. Journalists also reported cracks widening at a press center in the building’s southern section.
    The leaks did not stop the organizers from going ahead with a closing ceremony in the evening. Earlier Friday, organizers and construction workers scrambled to stop the leaks.
    Festival director Lee Yong-kwan blamed Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Co. for the cracks. The South Korean company, which built the theater, declined to comment, saying it had to investigate the holes first.
    The Busan film festival, held in the South Korean port city, has featured 307 movies from 70 countries, organizers said. Nearly 200,000 people came to the festival at the new multiplex, they said.

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