“Imported films accounted for only about a sixth of China’s total box office in 2020, a nearly 55% decrease year-on-year, industry data tracker Maoyan Entertainment said Monday. The decline highlights the chaos COVID-19 has wrought on Hollywood release schedules as well as the diminishing appeal of foreign content in what has just become the world’s largest film market.” – Variety
Building Audiences
As Australia’s Arts Festival Season Begins Amid The Pandemic, All Eyes Are On Sydney
“The [Sydney] Festival is poised to open on Wednesday and its administrators are on high alert. Though [New South Wales] Covid-19 case reports remain low, the list of exposure sites is growing by the day. … With Perth Festival following in early February and Adelaide Festival” — the largest arts event in the Southern Hemisphere — “a few weeks later, what happens in Sydney will be keenly observed.” – The Guardian
Sydney’s Reopening Theatres Say They’re ‘COVID-Safe.’ Are They?
The Opera House finally became the last of the city’s major venues to require masks, but enforcing the policy is not easy, and most of the theatres are selling up to 75% of capacity, as opposed to the less-than-half that’s been standard in where venues have been open in Europe and North America. Will these performances become super-spreader events? – The Guardian
How Jewish Theatre Scrambled And Remade Itself For The Digital Year
As with every other kind of theatre, Jewish theaters and playwrights, actors and tech people, had a lot to figure out. The Jewish Playwriting Contest completely reimagined what it was asking, and to whom it was advertising – and got a huge bump in engagement. “It actually ended up being a really successful year for us.” – Forward
The (Largely Untapped) Potential Of Reaching People With Physical Disabilities
“There is simply a lack of awareness of the need and a misunderstanding of the public benefit that could result from reaching out to this population, not to mention the financial benefit that might be gleaned from this untapped market. But fiscal considerations aside, there is simply no good reason why a person with a physical disability must also be culturally disadvantaged.” – Equal Entry
Despite New COVID Outbreak, Sydney Goes Ahead With Indoor Performances
What’s more, at two of the major ones — Rent and The Merry Widow at the Sydney Opera House — masks will not be mandatory. Audiences will be at 75% of capacity, with checkerboard seating and other distancing measures; masks are “strongly recommended.” Rules are similar for the presentations at the Sydney Festival’s main outdoor stage. Most other theatre companies in the city are performing as well, though they’re making the audience mask up. – The Guardian
Bollywood Depended Even More On Ticket Income Than Hollywood Did. Here’s How India’s Finally Embracing Direct-To-Streaming.
The fallout from the pandemic reduced box office grosses by about 75%, “making it easier for streaming services to land new movies, even with some theaters reopened. … The investments by streaming services in Bollywood content have also led to a surge of creativity. Instead of the usual romantic or action-hero films with all-star casts, more shows and movies are now centered on women, war and other topics.” – The New York Times
How TV Fundamentally Changed in 2020
2020 wasn’t just about bigger numbers for the streaming industry. We also got to see an acceleration of cord cutting as viewers migrated by the millions from legacy cable; a shift in power as device-makers emerged as the new gatekeepers; and the erosion of long-established theatrical release windows. – Protocol
The Moments Of Theatre That Offered Comfort, Aid, Glimmers Of Light
“Needless to say, 2020 didn’t exactly go as planned.” But actors, directors, playwrights, sound producers, lighting designers, and stage directors came through just as much as they possibly could. – Playbill
How The Vienna Philharmonic Has Pushed Through The Pandemic
They went on a tour of Japan last month; since they got home, they’ve started a Bruckner symphony cycle under Christian Thielemann and played Strauss and Webern program under Zubin Mehta. Chairman Daniel Froschauer and general manager Michael Bladerer talk with a reporter about the orchestra’s commitment to playing together live and why it’s important. – The New York Times
New “Wonder Woman” Flops At the International Box Office
After months of delays, “Wonder Woman 1984” finally hit theaters over the weekend in 32 international markets. But the movie floundered at the box office. The Warner Bros. sequel earned just $38.5 million internationally over the weekend ahead of its debut in the US on Friday, when it will play in theaters and stream on HBO Max simultaneously. – Business Insider
Gamer Awards Show Draws Monster Ratings
The 2020 telecast, staged this month from a Hollywood soundstage as well as dozens of remote locations, pulled in more than 83 million livestreams, falling just a bit shy of doubling last year’s 45.2 million livestreams, which was itself a sharp increase from the 11.5 million the ceremony garnered in 2017. – Los Angeles Times
Can Dudamel’s New Virtual Reality Film Make The Young’uns Think Orchestral Music Is Cool?
“The film” — titled Symphony in Madrid — “is split into two, 12-minute sections. The first, shown on a giant screen, follows three young musicians in Spain, the US and Colombia as they practise their instruments and move through landscapes and soundscapes that range from the Mediterranean coast to the streets of New York and a coffee farm on a tropical mountainside. For the second, visitors are invited into the other trailer, given a virtual reality headset and headphones, and urged to take leave of their senses.” – The Guardian
2020 Is The Year TikTok Started Transforming The World
“Now, at the end of 2020, TikTok is the most downloaded app of the year – and it’s changed an awful lot more than just how we consume media online.” Among other things, the app and the brief little videos on it have altered the way online comedy, activism, meme culture, and collaborative art. – BBC
Why Right-Wing Talk Radio Is So Effective
Good talk show hosts know their job isn’t to find or interview “good guests”; it’s to build a trust relationship with their audience, cemented over years, caller after caller, day after day. Truly effective hosts like Limbaugh and Michael Savage talk to their listeners as if they’re close and trusted friends. This is a dynamic unavailable to podcasting or television, as it is impossible to replicate without live listener interaction. – The Nation
Are Movie Studios Killing Theatres In Favor Of Streaming?
The Wall Street imperative now is too strong to resist. The conglomerates are sacrificing the future of moviegoing for the pandemically friendly practice of moviestaying. We were heading that way before COVID. Now we’re there. Outside the river of streaming content, for most studios the rest is just sentiment and small potatoes. – Chicago Tribune
AI Can Now Translate Movie Dialog In The Actors Voices
Deepdub, which came out of stealth on Wednesday, has built technology that can translate a voice track to a different language, all while staying true to the voice of the talent. This makes it possible to have someone like Morgan Freeman narrate a movie in French, Italian or Russian without losing what makes Freeman’s voice special and recognizable. – Protocol
Could The Streaming Wars Hit Their Peak In 2021?
The problem with all this growth is that eventually streaming services will just run out of households to sign up. This year, video-on-demand services have seen more growth than any other time in their history… But in 2021 the industry could see a massive cooling. Everyone will have tried everything and pretty much decided which ones they’re sticking to. – Wired
Christmas Carol Is More Than Humbug, Even For Those Weary Of Tiny Tim
Truly. Even this year, or perhaps especially this year. “‘Will you decide who shall live and who shall die?’ this Ghost of Christmas Present asked Scrooge, a question asked many times this year: Is it those in government who played down the disease, those in law enforcement who disregarded Black lives or those who have put others at risk during the pandemic?” – The New York Times
Barcelona Gives Same-Day Testing For Concertgoers A Try
More than 1000 people gathered for the experiment: Take a same-day, 15-minute antigen test, and then enjoy a concert. In this case, the concert was a free, indoor, rock and roll experiment wherein 500 people got to enjoy the music while the other 500 are serving as a control group. “The crowd reveled in the newfound freedom, dancing closely together and jostling one another for a bit of fun.” – Seattle Times (AP)
Canadian Broadcasters Struggle With How To Deal With Legacy Shows With Inappropriate Content
Robert Hackett, an emeritus professor in Simon Fraser University’s communications department, suggested broadcasters are “caught between a rock and a hard place” when it comes to addressing the problems with beloved content, where they risk facing accusations of cultural insensitivity on one hand or censorship on the other. – Toronto Star
Saving England’s Christmas Pantomimes From COVID
In York, they’re taking the panto around to socially distanced audiences at community centres in every neighborhood. In Coventry, they’re streaming from a studio and using sound effects in place of audience responses. In Liverpool, they’re acting in cinemas with scenery projected on the screen. A South London actor shot a panto in his back garden. Several cities are hosting drive-in pantos, and the BBC has hired major stars for a broadcast. – BBC
Why Producers Are Killing Movie Theatres
“We’re witnessing a transformation of what it means to watch a movie. For over a century, film was at its core a theatrical art form: While it’s true that movies could be watched on TV, the primary cinematic experience was immersive viewing in a theater surrounded by strangers. Now there is a push to make the movie theater merely one platform among others, offering an experience deemed no more meaningful than watching the same feature-length visual narratives on a home entertainment system, a laptop, or even a cell phone.” – The Nation
It’s Time For Movies To Move On Beyond Theatres
“It’s time for the creative cinema establishment to catch up to the movie audience because when the pandemic is over, cinema in theaters may only survive in art houses that are the equivalent of vinyl for music purists.” – Deadline
England’s Canceled Christmas Pantos Affect More Than The Theatres
Says the chief executive of the theatre in the town of Malvern in Worcestershire, “The panto is crucial for the theatre, as we are unsubsidised, but also for the local economy, to which the theatre is a huge contributor” — up to £21 million a year, researchers estimate. – The Guardian