Weiye Loh's Library tagged Hollywood → View Popular, Search in Google

May

2012

How to Make a Hollywood Hit - Magazine - The Atlantic

www.theatlantic.com/...8955

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Cultural Industries Hollywood Language Accent Movie

The new economics of Hollywood

www.lowyinterpreter.org/...ew-economics-of-Hollywood.aspx

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Cultural Industries Hollywood Language Accent Movie

No evidence is offered for the proposition that Australian or British accents 'feel' (shouldn't that be 'sound'?) more universal. And anyway, Hollywood's big growth opportunity is in Asia, particularly China, not an obvious market for films starring English-speaking actors, whatever their accent. In fact, another 'rule' suggested in The Atlantic article is 'Dub Animated Movies With Local Actors—or Hire Bilingual Superstars From the Start.' So maybe the future belongs to Chow Yun Fat or whoever inherits Jackie Chan's action-hero mantle, rather than Aussies like Chris Hemsworth.
the villain in the film is safely inter-galactic, thus conforming to rule no.3, 'Don't Offend Billions of Would-Be Viewers' by making someone of their nationality a bad guy.
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- 'Take Advantage of Foreign Labor'. The American spelling of 'Labor' could hardly be more apposite, since Hollywood surely has taken advantage of our federal government (and by extension, us taxpayers) in the case of 'The Wolverine'. The makers of this superhero film are getting a one-off $12.9 million subsidy to shoot in Sydney.

Sep

2011

Are We Living in the Golden Age of Male Objectification? -- Vulture

For decades, while film and television have gotten progressively racier, the objects of the camera's increasingly lurid gaze had largely been women. The reasons for this are so unofficially official they're like unwritten laws, habits that have been codified into "common sense" even if they don't make much sense: Hollywood's a boys' club and male audiences want sex and violence, while women want hearts and flowers. So women are lusted after by the cameras, while audiences looking for a little bit of dude to ogle had to be content with tame rom-coms, subtext, and the dreaded Comedy Penis (see: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Observe and Report, Bruno etc.).

But no more! The Summer of 2011 officially became the summer that the male gaze was reflected back at itself — and with enthusiasm! In the summer's superhero movies, a supremely buff body became part of what made these heroes so super. The Captain America trailer had Dominic Cooper doing the old look-over-the-top-of-my-sunglasses move to get a load of the newly pumped up Chris Evans. In Thor, Kat Dennings's audience-surrogate character spends half the movie talking about how nutso everything is and the other half pointing out that this blond god from the heavens is massively pumped. Fourteen years ago, America lost it when Batman's costume included rubber nipples. Now we've got a Spider-Man whose costume lifts and separates.

nymag.com/...e_living_in_the_golden_ag.html

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Objectification Gender Stereotype Gender Equality Hollywood

As revolutions go, the movie industry learning to exploit their male movie stars is more a matter of fairness than real upheaval. It's not like women are suddenly not being objectified; now it's just objectification for all. But if the upshot is a slight widening of the traditional Hollywood gaze, a recognition that all sorts of audiences are looking for tawdry thrills at the movies — not to mention, more movies about male strippers with hearts, and asses, of gold — how is that not progress?

Jul

2011

Greening the screen » Scienceline

For environmentalists trying to use entertainment to shape broad public attitudes and behaviors, nothing could be more important than understanding how to reach these hard-to-get people. Something that will speak to them, something that will change their minds, and most importantly, something that will incite them to action. A documentary might not be that something.

scienceline.org/...greening-the-screen

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Environment Media Image Entertainment Hollywood Cultural Industries Climate Change Narratives Emotion

Environmental films tend to “draw a pretty pre-disposed audience,” said Susi Moser, a fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University and climate change communications specialist. A 2010 study on The Age of Stupid (a hybrid documentary, drama, and animation on climate change) found that most filmgoers were already quite concerned about climate change, and motivated to mitigate it, even before seeing the film. For audiences that are already devoted to an environmental cause, these films merely confirm their pre-existing beliefs.
Documentary film director Louie Psihoyos anticipated this problem when he directed The Cove, a 2009 Oscar-winning documentary about mass dolphin hunting in Japan. His solution was to model the film after a popular Hollywood blockbuster.

“We wanted to do a ‘making-of’ style film that felt like Ocean’s Eleven,” he said. “That was a way in — to tell a dark story in a popular way.”
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- But not all documentaries take such a novel approach. Randy Olson, a marine biologist-turned-filmmaker at the University of Southern California, is a harsh critic of what he sees as a very literal-minded, information-heavy approach within the environmental film genre. Well-intentioned environmental documentary filmmakers are just “making their same, boring, linear, one-dimensional explorations of issues,” said Olson. “The public’s not buying it.”
- The problem may run deeper than audience tallies — after all, An Inconvenient Truth currently ranks as the sixth-highest grossing documentary in the United States. However, a 2010 study by social psychologist Jessica Nolan found that while the film increased viewers’ concern about global warming, that concern didn’t translate into any substantial action a month later.
- To move a larger audience to action, Olson advocates a shift from the literal-minded world of documentary into the imaginative world of narrative.
- One organization using this approach is the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Sciences. The Exchange puts writers, producers, and directors in touch with scientists and engineers who can answer specific questions or just brainstorm ideas. For example, writers for the TV show Fringe changed their original plot point of mind control through hypnosis to magnetic manipulation of brain waves after speaking with a neuroscientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California.
- Hollywood, Health and Society (HHS), a program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, takes a similar approach by providing free resources to the entertainment industry. HHS connects writers and producers — from prime time dramas like Law and Order and House to daytime soap operas – with experts who can provide accurate health information for their scripts.
- HHS Director Sandra Buffington admits that environmental issues, especially climate change, pose particular challenges for communicators because at first glance, they are not as immediately relevant as personal health issues. However, she believes that by focusing on real, human stories — climate refugees displaced by rising water levels, farmers unable to grow food because of drought, children sick because of outbreaks of malaria — the issues of the planet will crystallize into something tangible. All scientists need to do is provide the information, and the professional creative storytellers will do the rest, she says.
- Olson also takes a cue from television. He points to the rise of reality TV shows as a clear indication of where the general public interest lies. If environmentalists want to capture that interest, Olson thinks they need to start experimenting with these innovative types of unscripted forms. “That’s where the cutting edge exists,” he said.