Study Tracks Concerns About 3-D TV SetsDavid Bauder, Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – A study about consumer attitudes toward 3-D television found many who were less interested in the technology after they actually experienced it.
Still, 52 percent of consumers who tried out 3-D televisions said it was a better experience than they had expected, according to a study conducted by The Nielsen Co. for the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing. The study was released Thursday.
“There is a lot of interest in 3-D TV but there are barriers that you have to overcome to make it a successful experience,” said Char Beales, president and CEO of the association.
Aside from the cost of buying 3-D sets at a time the technology is just becoming available, the glasses required to watch them are a major hindrance. Fifty-seven percent of people surveyed cited the glasses as a reason they were not likely to buy a set. Nearly nine in 10 people worry that it will constrain them from multitasking while the TV is o n, the survey said.
It suggests that the true breakthrough for the technology won’t come until sets are developed that allow 3-D viewing without the glasses, Beales said.
The percentage of people who said they were interested in buying a 3-D set during the next year went down when these willing consumers were brought in to see how it worked, Nielsen said.
People are also concerned there is not enough 3-D programming available yet to make a purchase worthwhile.
More than three-quarters of people surveyed said 3-D viewing is best-suited to special events like sports or movies than regular TV viewing, the survey said.
Seven in 10 regular gamers expressed interest in playing games in 3-D, Nielsen said.
Nielsen conducted focus groups and a survey of 425 randomly selected people who answered questions and watched a 30-minute highlight reel of 3-D television. The margin of error is plus or minus 5 percent.
Japanese Cult Director in Venice with Samurai FilmSheri Jennings
VENICE, Italy (AP) – Japanese cult director Takashi Miike says he remade the 1963 classic “Thirteen Assassins” to help Japan’s younger generation learn about the past.
The film is set about 150 years ago, toward the end of the samurai period. An esteemed samurai, Shinzaemon Shimada, played by Japanese superstar Koji Yakusho – best known to international audiences for his roles in “Babel” and “Memoirs of a Geisha” – calls on 12 other elite warriors to end the sadistic rule of Lord Naritsugu.
“I wanted the audience to realize that this story is not taking place in the remote past, but rather in a recent past when our grand-grand parents lived,” the director told a news conference Thursday ahead of the film’s premiere in competition for the Golden Lion. “It is our story, the story of our everyday life. In Japan, contemporary history is something children do not know very well.”
The movie is a remake of Eiichi Kudo’s black-and-white classic of t he samurai genre.
Stylish and intricately choreographed, the story line presents the noble ideals often associated with samurai, for example, when early in the film Shimada says the greatest honor he could achieve as a samurai would be to die a “noble death.”
“Fate smiles on me,” he says when the opportunity to face off against Lord Naritsugu comes his way.
The film also relies on Miike’s trademark use of violence. He also gives each samurai a distinctive personality, deepening interest in the characters.
The film comes to Venice competition with a strong production pedigree behind it. Jeremy Thomas, the project’s executive producer who met Miike in Venice a few years ago, worked on Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1987 Oscar-winning film “The Last Emperor.”
The film’s other executive producer, Toshiaki Nakazawa, was behind the film “Departures,” which won the best foreign film Oscar.
Miike was last in Venice with the 2007 film “Sukiyaki Western Djan go,” in which actor and director Quentin Tarantino had a cameo.
Tarantino, a big fan of Miike’s films, is president of this year’s jury, which will decide the winner of the Golden Lion on Sept. 11.
Paley Center Says New TV Awards Show Set for 2012Lynn Elber, Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – The Emmys aren’t the only big TV-honors game anymore.
The Paley Center for Media announced plans Wednesday for an awards telecast that will debut in spring 2012 in New York. It was developed with the help of TV, advertising and new-media executives.
The center said the new awards will take a “fresh and distinctive approach” that involves the public in the selection process and reaches beyond TV by celebrating video across all platforms – an apparent reference to online and mobile distribution.
Details regarding the awards categories, as well as the nominations and voting process remain under discussion, Paley Center President and CEO Pat Mitchell said in a statement.
The show is planned for May to coincide with the New York “upfronts” during which TV networks present their fall schedules to prospective advertisers.
The new awards come after several years of declining or stagnant ratings for the prime-time Emmy Awards, which aired its 62nd ceremony last month. An attempt to overhaul the show by reducing the more than two-dozen categories presented during the telecast failed after guild and other industry opposition.
Negotiations are in progress between the the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the four major broadcast networks that have been airing the Emmys on a rotating basis. The current eight-year contract with ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC expires this year.
A Paley spokewoman said which network would carry the new awards ceremony has yet to be determined.
Other awards recognize achievements in both TV and movies, including the Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe awards, but the Emmys were alone among major awards focused solely on television.
In March, the Paley Center announced a committee to explore creation of an awards show. It was headed by Steve Mosko, president of Sony Pictures Television, Tony Vinciquerra, chairman and CEO of the Fox Network s Group, and Dick Lippin, chairman and chief executive of the Lippin Group, a public relations and marketing firm.
“We have already received considerable interest from television networks and advertisers, and now that we have announced the time and location of our first show we will begin right away to translate this interest into substantive discussions,” Mosko said in a statement.
The center said it intends to merge its annual New York gala fundraising event with the 2012 awards telecast. One or more of its new awards may be presented at its 2011 gala fundraiser, which has usually been held in winter.
The nonprofit center, located in New York and Los Angeles, said its mission is to foster discussion about the artistic and social significance of TV, radio and new media among industry professionals and the public.
Network For Conservative Entertainment LaunchesDavid Bauder, Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Actor Kelsey Grammer is an investor and public face supporting a new network that launched Wednesday with entertainment designed to appeal to political conservatives.
RightNetwork, whose first series, “Running,” follows the fortunes of a couple of Tea Party-backed candidates for public office, is also trying a new model to establish itself. It is initially making programming available through video-on-demand services, the Internet and through mobile phones, bypassing the route of traditional TV networks with a spot on channel lineups.
Investors hope that the support of a conservative audience that has made Fox News Channel and radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh successful could also work for entertainment programming, said Kevin McFeeley, RightNetwork’s president.
“We feel the precedent has been set,” he said.
Grammer, the Emmy-winning star of “Frasier,” said the network represented a desire by him and some political fri ends “to stop allowing people who hate us to define us.”
“If you have NBC, ABC, you have entire networks flooded with a very particular point of view,” he said. “They won’t admit it, but it’s clearly the way it is. There’s plenty of room for us.”
Initial programming also includes “Right2Laugh,” with standup comedians Evan Sayet, Kivi Rogers and Adam Yenser; “Politics and Poker,” with card players sitting around talking politics; and “Leftovers,” with Yenser hosting a “lighthearted look” at current news and entertainment. New episodes are made available every couple of weeks, McFeeley said. Some of the candidates featured in “Running” have already lost primary bids.
In the works is a sitcom called “Moving Numbers,” about quirky political consultants trying to elect a candidate to the U.S. Senate. McFeeley said the RightNetwork will also offer some vintage programming, such as old episodes of William F. Buckley’s “Firing Line” and Milton Friedman’s “Uncommon Knowledge.”
“We’re not out to vilify or accuse or identify anybody as an enemy,” Grammer said. “We’re out there to encourage people to open their minds and take a look at some things that we as a group of people believe is the right direction for the country.”
Jeff Cohen, an Ithaca College journalism professor and liberal activist, questioned whether the kind of audience that likes conservative talk shows want something similar in entertainment, and whether it can be pulled off.
“Comedy requires irony,” Cohen said. “It can’t be frothing with hate or fear. Drama requires complexity. It can’t be all black and white.”
While Grammer narrates a programming highlight reel available on RightNetwork’s website, he hasn’t participated as an actor or producer in any of the network’s programming. The only other investor the privately held company has identified is Ed Snider, chairman of Comcast-Spectacor and owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and Flyers.
Snider’s involvement led to initial false reports this spring that Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable company, was a backer of RightNetwork. However, the network doesn’t even have a deal to distribute its programming through Comcast, which aggressively markets video-on-demand offerings. So far, Verizon FiOS subscribers are the only customers who can access the shows on demand, McFeeley said. Similarly, Nokia is the only mobile phone outlet.
It illustrates the huge challenge RightNetwork faces in trying to build its brand at a time cable and satellite companies have little space to offer new networks, said Derek Baine, a senior analyst at SNL Kagan. Only the Anime Network, which had some limited success with a specialized lineup of Japanese animation, and Fearnet, which offers horror films and has the backing of Comcast and movie distributor Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., have tried the video-on-demand model to start, he said.
“The problem is, you’ve got to get a way for people to find you,” Baine said. “Without big marketing dollars, how are people going to know you are on the air?”
McFeeley said the video-on-demand approach will mirror the way people are increasingly watching television, by picking and choosing from programming and making their own schedules. He said the company will specially target potential conservative viewers with e-mail messages touting the product.
With billboards, “we’re trying to hit some of the major media markets to let people know that we’ve arrived,” he said.
Grammer said he “came out” as a conservative in Hollywood 20 years ago and said it hasn’t affected his work, although he wouldn’t advise a young actor with similar views to talk about them. He said that it’s not “right-wing nuts” who are behind the network.
“We’re middle-of-the road people who have a fairly conservative approach to government, that’s all. Less government,” he said. “It’s not some insidious group of peopl e who are plotting some horrible takeover.”
Amazon Buys Online Music Retailer Amie Street
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Amazon.com Inc., seeking to expand its position in the music download market against rivals like Apple Inc.’s iTunes Store, has purchased online music retailer Amie Street for an undisclosed amount.
In an e-mail to users Wednesday, Amie Street said it has found “a great home” for its site AmieStreet.com with Amazon. The Seattle-based online retailer first invested in the site nearly four years ago, Amie Street said.
Amie Street, which is based in Long Island City, N.Y., was founded in 2006. Unlike online music stores like Amazon MP3 and the iTunes Store, the site has allowed users to buy songs that start off free and become increasingly expensive as they rise in popularity.
The e-mail said that starting Sept. 22, site visitors will be forwarded to Amazon.com Web pages, and the AmieStreet.com service will be shut down. Users have until that date to spend any credit they have with the site or download any songs they’ve alr eady purchased.
On Wednesday afternoon, the site was unavailable for use, with visitors greeted by a note informing them that it was “down for maintenance.”
The e-mail said that going forward, Amie Street will focus on developing Songza.com, which is an Internet radio service that lets people build playlists with friends.
Lawsuit over filming of Beyonce video settled
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A lawsuit filed by a Los Angeles man upset with the disruption from a Beyonce Knowles music video shoot has been dismissed and settled.
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge dismissed Philip Markowitz’s suit against the Grammy-winning singer on Friday.
Markowitz’s lawsuit alleged the shoot for “Why Don’t You Love Me” had “shattered” his privacy and kept him from having access to his home in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood. He claimed the filming stretched until 11 p.m.
He had been seeking more than $25,000 from Knowles, a liability company and a production coordinator.
Markowitz’s attorney, Gary Kurtz, said the lawsuit was resolved to the satisfaction of both sides.
“No one got rich, no one got poor,” Kurtz said. “It was a modest but appropriate payment that was similar to what would have been paid pursuant to a reasonable agreement.”
Ben Affleck Brings Boston to Venice At Film FestSherri Jennings
VENICE, Italy (AP) – Ben Affleck brought Boston to Venice on Wednesday, presenting a reality-driven heist film “The Town” that is destined to draw comparisons to his other films also set in his Massachusetts hometown.
Affleck also stars in the film, which is having its world premiere out of competition at the Venice Film Festival on the lagoon city’s Lido.
Boston was also the setting for Affleck’s Oscar-winning “Good Will Hunting,” which he co-wrote and starred in, and “Gone Baby Gone,” also written and directed by Affleck and starring his younger brother Casey.
“I didn’t want to get pigeonholed as the Boston director guy,” Affleck told reporters at a packed news conference.
Still, the 38-year-old actor/director acknowledged that his deep understanding of the city helped him create the style he aspired to and which persuaded him to forge ahead with his latest project.
The plot involves a gang of bank robbers from the Boston neigh borhood of Charleston, notorious for producing more bank and armored car robbers than anywhere else in the United States.
“The social realism aspect of it was really important to me,” he said. “I don’t think you can like a movie like this or believe a movie like this unless you have a strong sense of place and really believe that the characters are from there and what you see is really happening.”
Affleck cited Warner’s Bros. classic gangster films as well as the more recent Italian film “Gomorrah,” directed by Matteo Garrone about the Neapolitan Camorra crime gang, as inspiring his work on “The Town.”
Gomorrah “was a big influence on me in that sense you felt that it was real. I had never been there before but you felt like he really got it right,” he said.
Affleck said the use of security camera footage was another way to give audiences a real experience.
“I wanted to show (the robberies) as we see them in real life,” he said. “(We) are accust omed to seeing robberies and violence in 15 frames-per-second, black-and-white material we see on YouTube or the nightly news of someone breaking in, with no sound, and breaking some glass and even maybe shooting.”
The film opens with a terrifying heist by masked robbers that finishes with the kidnapping of the bank’s director, Claire, played by Rebecca Hall. Before freeing her, the gang took her driver’s license, leaving her with fears they might come back for her.
Two of the robbers, loose cannon Jem (Jeremy Renner) and the steadier Doug MacRay (Affleck) are concerned she might have evidence to turn over to the FBI.
In order to find out, Doug stages a casual encounter at a laundry where he engages Claire in conversation and invites her on a date.
Eventually Claire confides that she recognized one of the robber’s tattoos but hadn’t told the FBI special agent (Jon Hamm) trailing the gang. At this point, Doug is in an increasingly volatile situation, u p against his fellow robbers, particularly Jem and the mafia boss threats of Fergie, played by Oscar winner Pete Postlethwaite.
So far, the film is a high point for the Venice film festival, which has had less star power this year than in previous events.
Renner was on the Lido last year with director Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar winner “The Hurt Locker” but shrugged off comparisons between the full-throttle characters he played in each film.
“Nothing from ‘Hurt Locker’ rolls into this,” Renner told reporters.
Hall’s career bolted upward with her starring role in Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”
The festival’s top Golden Lion award will be handed out at its closing ceremony on Saturday.
Clooney and Knightley in London Film Fest EntriesJill Lawless
LONDON (AP) – In an age of austerity, the London Film Festival is hoping that uncertainty will be good for creativity, and that Hollywood glamour and plucky British filmmaking can be a balm for economic woes.
The lineup for the 54th annual festival, announced Wednesday, features fewer world premieres, and perhaps fewer A-list stars, than last year, but has a slate of British and international movies that organizers say is one of the strongest in years.
The lineup of more than 300 features and shorts includes films starring George Clooney, Keira Knightley, Colin Firth and Natalie Portman, while Naomie Harris, Helena Bonham Carter and Julianne Moore are also expected to grace the red carpet.
“It’s hard to recollect a year when the program has been so varied,” artistic director Sandra Hebron said. “And there’s the strongest British selection we’ve had for a long time.”
The Oct. 13 opener is Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go,” an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s haunting novel starring Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield as friends at an unusual boarding school negotiating a rocky path to adulthood.
Clooney plays a world-weary assassin in “The American,” from Dutch director Anton Corbijn (“Control”), while Portman is a dancer in Darren Aronofsky’s ballet thriller “Black Swan,” which generated a buzz at this month’s Venice Film Festival.
Other galas include “Conviction,” starring Hilary Swank as a woman on a quest to clear her brother of murder; Julian Schnabel’s Palestinian drama “Miral”; and inspiring African tales “The First Grader” – about an 84-year-old Kenyan starting primary school – and “Africa United,” the story of a group of youngsters determined to reach the World Cup in South Africa.
British films carrying big expectations include “The King’s Speech,” starring Firth as King George VI, the British monarch during World War II who struggled to overcome a severe stutter.
There are films from British veterans Mike Leigh (“Another Year”) and Peter Mullan (“Neds”), and newcomers including artist Gillian Wearing (“Self Made) and actor Richard Ayoade (“Submarine”).
The slate of films from 67 countries should include something for everyone, from fans of French New Wave iconoclast Jean-Luc Godard (“Film Socialisme”) to lovers of Motorhead singer Lemmy, star of an eponymous documentary.
Several films look at the difficult legacies of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ken Loach’s “Route Irish” follows a pair of military contractors, while Brian Welsh’s “In Our Name” depicts an Iraq veteran struggling to come to terms with her experiences. Documentary “The Tillman Story” looks at the controversial death of Pat Tillman, the NFL player turned U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan.
The festival closes Oct. 28 with Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours,” based on the true story of climber Aron Ralston, who amputated his own arm after it was trapped by a boulder in a Utah canyon.
London is one of the world’s oldest film festivals. This year’s austerity-tinged edition features 11 world premieres, down from 15 in 2009, alongside the pick of British and world cinema from the past year.
Amanda Nevill, director of festival organizer the British Film Institute, acknowledged that “the entire film firmament is being changed as we speak” amid British government spending cuts and the abolition of a major funding body, the U.K. Film Council.
“There isn’t time to mourn the old order,” she said. “We have to get on and shape our destiny and look to the future.”
Hebron said the turbulence could have a positive side.
“It does seem that times of change produce interesting culture,” she said.
‘Bonanza’ Producer David Dortort Dies at 93
LOS ANGELES (AP) – David Dortort, who produced “Bonanza,” ”The High Chaparral” and other TV Westerns, has died. He was 93.
His business manager, Mads Bjerre, tells the Los Angeles Times that Dortort died in his sleep Sunday at his West Los Angeles home.
“Bonanza” starred Lorne Green as the patriarch of a family that lived on the Ponderosa Ranch in Nevada. The show was the first prime-time Western to be broadcast in color when it debuted in 1959 and ran 14 seasons. It became one of the highest-rated and best-loved shows on television.
Dortort also was executive producer of “The High Chaparral,” which ran from 1967 to 1971, and the 1979 miniseries “The Chisolms,” along with several later “Bonanza” TV movies.
Rolling Stones Again at Peak in Rerelease
Chris Lehourities
LONDON (AP) – The Rolling Stones have hit their peak again in 2010, this time in the form of a rarely seen rereleased movie of a 1972 concert.
“Ladies and Gentlemen … The Rolling Stones” was originally released in late 1973 in Britain, but the film was not widely shown. The digitally remastered version, which made its global premiere on Tuesday in London, shows the Stones at their best, belting out classics like “Brown Sugar,” ”You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” along with “new” songs like “Tumbling Dice,” Sweet Virginia” and “Rip This Joint.”
The latter songs were all on the 1972 album “Exile on Main St.,” which was also remastered and rereleased this year to great acclaim.
None of the current Rolling Stones members that are in the movie – Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts – made it for the premiere, but former bassist Bill Wyman was in attendance. Wyman was with the band for 30 years but quit in 199 2 to explore other musical opportunities.
Although Jagger wasn’t there, a short interview with the lead singer was played on screen before the movie began.
“Everyone’s very together and on,” Jagger said in the interview, which was recorded about six weeks ago in London. “I can remember the Rolling Stones being very, kind of, lackadaisical, very sloppy band on stage. But this was obviously not the case on this day.”
The 1972 tour was the Stones at their peak, or at least at the tail end of it.
The five-year period leading up to that year is generally regarded as the band’s prime. From “Beggars Banquet” in 1968 through “Let It Bleed” in ’69 and “Sticky Fingers” in ’71, the Stones were the ultimate rock n’ roll band, playing hard and partying harder.
The movie, pieced together from several different concerts played in Texas, was digitally remastered and will be shown in theaters around the world in the coming weeks. The DVD and Blu-ray versions are set to be released in October, according to Eagle Rock Entertainment chief operating officer Geoff Kempin.
The Stones also released “Stones in Exile” this year, a documentary about the making of “Exile on Main St.”
“(Jagger is) very strategic about where and when he wants stuff released,” Kempin said.
The movie opens with a black screen and some background noise. Soon, though, the lights come on and Watts starts banging on his drums as the band breaks into “Brown Sugar.”
Throughout the movie, the clothes change as the concert footage switches from show to show, but the music remains crisp and tight. Before they start playing “Midnight Rambler,” Jagger personifies the attitude of the band at the time by taking a couple of swigs from a big bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.
The footage also harkens back to the days when playing concerts was more intimate for the band because the stage was so small, especially compared to later tours when Jagger wou ld constantly be on the move, sometimes even running through the crowd with security guards all around him.
“We were really close together, super close together,” Jagger said.
And with no additional vocals and only some keyboards and percussion in support, the sound was more raw.
“I haven’t heard the Stones signing without backing vocals for years,” said Mike Griffiths, a 59-year-old television director and longtime fan. “It took me back.”
The movie features 15 songs without interruption, finishing off with “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Street Fighting Man.”
“It was,” Jagger said, “a good choice of songs.”
Malaysia Muslim TV Ad Scrapped Amid Christmas LinkKUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — A Malaysian television station scrapped a commercial tied to the biggest Muslim holiday after viewers complained it appeared influenced by Christmas and Santa Claus.
The commercial began airing earlier this month to wish Muslim viewers a happy celebration of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Ethnic Malay Muslims, who comprise nearly two-thirds of Malaysia’s 28 million people, are expected to start observing Eid this Friday.
The ad depicted children traveling in a flying trishaw driven across the night sky by a white-haired, elderly man to a fantasy land with sparkling lotuses and oil lamps.
The clip drew complaints from people who believed the man was reminiscent of Santa Claus, and that the clip looked like a promotion for Christmas instead of Eid. Some also believed it should not have depicted lotuses or oil lamps, saying those seemed linked to Buddhism and Hinduism.
News anchors on the private TV3 channel apologized for the commercial during a prime-time news broadcast Sunday night, saying the station had stopped running the one-minute clip and would ensure that no similar incidents occur again.
TV3 officials could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
Religion is a sensitive subject in this multiethnic country, where ethnic Chinese and Indians who mainly practice Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism are the largest minorities.
The government has struggled in recent years to improve relations among the races following a series of grievances over racial and religious rights. Minorities say that efforts to bolster Islam have undermined their freedom to practice their faiths amid disputes such as whether non-Muslims can use the word “Allah” to refer to God.
