“TV Networks love their clip shows, those pastiches of film and TV footage that are wrapped up into programs in their own right, sometimes with a nostalgic spin, sometimes with a more current-events-oriented one. It’s a genre that has proved to be as addictive as it is unchallenging. And it’s yet more evidence that, while TV might not rot your brain, it certainly can massage it by playing to our celebrity and mass-media obsessions, occasionally mocking them and inviting us to mock along.”
Tag: 08.13.04
Budget Conscious – How Much Do Movies Cost?
What do movies cost to make? The short answer is that nobody but the studios know for sure. But reporting movie budgets is a hot sport. “Today’s budget reporting is truth-or-dare journalism, shaped by constant manipulation and gamesmanship. The issue has become a sore subject because it reinforces the most negative stereotypes about journalists and film execs — that the former are inaccurate and the latter are liars.”
The Houston Symphony’s $880,000 Deficit (Much Smaller Than Predicted)
The Houston Symphony finished its 2003-04 season with an $880,000 deficit, much smaller than predicted. “A strike by musicians in March 2003, the first in the organization’s 90-year history helped the orchestra end the 2002-03 season with a $3.6 million deficit. But the strike settlement allowed the symphony’s board to implement a five-year plan to get balanced budgets on a regular basis and pay off its accumulated deficit by 2008.”
Booming UK Film Industry Could Bust
The UK film industry has been operating at record levels. “During 2003 the industry boasted record levels of production spending, with £1.16bn spent making 173 features in, or involving, the UK. And the industry now employs 57,429 people – a whopping 77% increase in the past 10 years.” But some are warning that this boom could bust, like many booms before…
The Artist Beyond The Success
Artists like success of course. “But what about being trapped by success? Being widely admired and richly rewarded for something you do, but secretly wishing to do something entirely different?” A surprising number of artists harbor ambitions beyond their renown…
ID’ing Your Handwriting
Okay, so handwriing analysis has a bit of a hinky reputation (can you really tell I have problems with my mother by the way I cross my T’s?) But a new method promises accurate interpretation of handwriting. “Their method employs holography. This technique makes three-dimensional images from the interference patterns of two laser beams used to scan an object—in this case a sample of handwriting. When the holographic information in an image is transferred to a computer, that image can be interpreted as a series of troughs of varying depths, denoting the pressure of the pen strokes used to make them.”
Testifying For Shostakovich
Interest in Shostakovich is increasing, and a flury of activity put him under examination. “Scholarship on Shostakovich is still in its infancy. There’s still a lot that we don’t know. The good news is that things in Russia have changed back. Now Russian scholars are going into the archives.”
The Style Vs Content Debate
In recent times, the mark of good academic writing has been in the information contained. But what of style? Doesn’t it convey useful information too? “Everyone understands that the content is constant, frequently ordinary, and sometimes banal; that the (wide) variation, the arena for expression and excellence, the fun, the art – are all in the individual style.”