Extras. Electronic press kits. Behind-the-scenes videos. Whatever you call them, they ruin the magic of the movies. Actors have mixed feelings about them. My feelings, on the other hand, are “maxed” toward their use — only well after the movies are released.
Six pieces of advice for modern TV executives, which were moved from the temporal lobe of my brain to the frontal lobe in order to be dispensed at zero cost.
The fact that I have been able to attend 40 MIP-TVs is a reason to be pitied, not celebrated. As member of the “press,” I would probably be more appreciated if I were to head to the laundry room to “press” some shirts rather than poking around asking questions for stories that are going to be published.
In addition to serving food, restaurants also serve to measure the stature of entertainment executives. Restaurateurs are the first to recognize the execs’ positions and the first to acknowledge their power. Restaurant tables are the dining equivalent of corner offices with views of the park.
CEOs could be visionaries if only Wall Street would let them risk failure. Right now, the Street rewards failure, but not visionaries. Vision is not just recognizing opportunities, though.
First it was radio that was declared harmful to society (to children in particular). Then it was television that was blamed for mesmerizing kids (remember the term ‘idiot box’?).
It’s no longer enough for commercials to just bring money to linear television, they also have to be clever and memorable enough to bring TV outlets repeated viewership.
My good friend, the late Norman Horowitz (1932- 2015), used to call me twice a week to tell me the same thing over and over: “No one knows anything!” Perhaps, quoting American screenwriter William Goldman who wrote, “nobody known anything” in his 1983 book, “Adventures in The Screen Trade.” Horowitz called himself a negativist (although he was really more of a contrarian), but he was a humorous one.
A dozen new gender categories will wreak havoc on audience research firms since they soon won’t be permitted to use the “binary” categories: male or female.
