Category: Media

Rehearsals Begin For Hester Street

Last week, we began rehearsals for our much-anticipated world premiere, Hester Street, the adaptation of the beloved 1975 film Hester Street by Joan Micklin Silver.

The company and friends of Theater J gathered to hear a first read-through from an outstanding cast. There were the small gasps, moments of laughter, and of course brief pauses to wipe a tear.

The award-winning Broadway director Oliver Butler directs this timeless story, produced in association with Michael Rabinowitz and Ira Deutchman.

Enjoy these images from our first day of rehearsal – and don’t forget to book your tickets for an unforgettable evening. Let Hester Street shine new light on a deeply familiar human experience.

Hester Street First Rehearsal

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Hester Street
March 27 – April 21

Faced with the disintegration of her marriage in a world she can barely comprehend, Gitl must find her voice, protect her son, and redefine her identity. A deeply moving new stage adaptation Hester Street is an unforgettable show, awash in the humor, heartbreak and hope essential to the Jewish immigrant experience.

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The VCR Will Be The Death of Commercials!

I was rummaging around in some old VHS tapes yesterday and came across a tape of a news item from 1984 about this new problem that had arisen–television viewers could now fast-forward through commercials! I had this tape in my possession because I had been featured in the piece, along with my son, as so-called “zappers.” I remember thinking the piece was funny when it first ran, but now, 38 years later, it’s hilarious. More interestingly, it shows how much technology changes over time, and yet how we seem to fret over the same issues, over and over again. Anyway, enjoy this time capsule!

Comments after the break. Continue reading “The VCR Will Be The Death of Commercials!”

Premature Obituaries Part 2: The Case For Twitter

As the new year begins, I’m going to pick up where I left off last month, discussing another media platform that is being prematurely written off by the pundits—Twitter.

For years, when I’ve discussed social media in my Business of Film class at Columbia, I have been surprised at how few of my students pay any attention to Twitter. When I quiz them further, it seems that the reason they are not on the platform is that they’ve been scared by what they’ve heard about the toxic environment they are told exists in Twitter. This, of course, was long before the takeover by Elon Musk, which has now created a narrative that is scaring even existing users away.

With Musk allowing some previously banned people back on the platform, and messing around with various ways to increase revenue, fear of Twitter has people predicting its demise and scaring users into abandoning it. Here are some reasons why I think we should all stick it out—and perhaps more controversially, why folks who have never used it should get started now. Continue reading “Premature Obituaries Part 2: The Case For Twitter”

Premature Obituaries Part 1: Is The Movie Theater Business Dead?

With each passing week of meager reported box office, conventional wisdom in the press is that the tea leaves are pointing to the eventual death of theatrical moviegoing. While the numbers speak for themselves, the leap from near-term results to eventual demise is a simplistic analysis based on two factors that, while true, are not necessarily predictive. Yes, it is true that the closure of theaters during the pandemic helped to solidify home viewing as the default way of consuming new films. It is also true that many audiences (particularly older audiences) are not currently feeling ready to go back to movie theaters; nor for that matter, given their new home viewing habits, do they feel the need to.

But do these facts point to the end of the theatrical business? After all, the movie business has survived many existential threats in the course of its 100-plus-year history. The assumption here is that the business cannot adapt, as it has in the past, to the new realities in ways that could change the playing field. And the pundits seem not to be paying attention to other trends that are creating a potentially positive environment for a rebound. Continue reading “Premature Obituaries Part 1: Is The Movie Theater Business Dead?”

The Warners Movie Dump: An Ominous Sign for the Streaming Biz?

The announcement last week that the newly combined Warner Bros. Discovery was planning to dump seven of its films, including one big budget female-driven DC Comics superhero film, has brought on a lot of angst and debate among those tracking the film business. The decision was both surprising in some ways, while being entirely predictable in others.

While there are plenty of examples of feature films that have been unceremoniously dumped by their studios because of lack of faith in commercial potential, or because of a regime change, historically these decisions were based on not wanting to throw good money after bad by spending the necessary marketing money for those films to reach an audience.

In the current media environment, one might have assumed that while such films might be denied a life in theaters, they certainly would provide adequate filler for a streaming service, if for no other reason than to give the appearance of having a wide selection of offerings. Just one quick look at the menus for any of these services would indicate that quantity rather than quality rules that business model. So why would Warners just dump these films, rather than relegating them to their HBO Max platform? Continue reading “The Warners Movie Dump: An Ominous Sign for the Streaming Biz?”

Seven Ways The New York Times Could Help Save Theatrical Moviegoing and Its Own Bottom Line

There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t read The New York Times. I fully admit to being one of those old-fashioned people who reads the news on paper; I flip through every page, skimming the articles, diving into whatever grabs my attention, and feeling like I’ve absorbed enough information to be up to date on our crazy world.

There also isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t get pissed off at The Times for one reason or another. The insistence on presenting “both sides” of every issue, to the point of false equivalencies, is a particular source of anger. (Let’s not forget that it was The Times that broke the story of “Hillary’s emails” and continued to hammer it all the way to November.)

However, all told, The Times does a better job than most daily newspapers of at least trying to get things right. And in an environment in which newspapers around the world are under severe threat of extinction, I find it heartening That they have found a way to keep the paper alive while deftly navigating new business models to support it.

That said, what brings me to write comes less from my personal and political perspectives as a reader than my professional perspective as someone who lives in the world of movie marketing; more specifically someone who has spent their life trying to get audiences to see less commercial fare in movie theaters. The Times has always played an important role in that effort, but unfortunately in recent years, changes have been made that have created great obstacles to that effort. Continue reading “Seven Ways The New York Times Could Help Save Theatrical Moviegoing and Its Own Bottom Line”

Is “Fake News” Legitimized by “Quality TV?”

In yesterday’s New York Times, the showrunners of several current political TV dramas discuss how the outrageousness of current political reality has affected the plotlines of their shows. Some of them talk about how they had to change the direction of the current season to take into account the real-life headlines that, in some cases, might make a plot twist dated or moot. Reading this, I couldn’t help but feel that there’s another side to this—one that these showrunners might not want to face: that these fictional television series have unwittingly aided and abetted a climate of mistrust for government and the rise of “fake news.”

Fictional TV has always had a side that was “ripped from the headlines.” Famously, the “Law and Order” series would take actual tabloid stories and fictionalize them just enough to pass muster without needing the rights to anyone’s particular story.

In recent years, there has been a spate of series that have one underlying theme—cynicism about our government. This list of shows is long, and includes everything from “Madam Secretary” to “The Good Wife” to “House of Cards” to “Homeland” to “Designated Survivor” to “Scandal”—even to “Game of Thrones.” Continue reading “Is “Fake News” Legitimized by “Quality TV?””

Kickoff to the MIPS Marketing and Distribution Presentations

Here is the full text of the kickoff remarks I made this morning at the Minority Independent Producers Summit, a three day conference that has going on since Tuesday night in New York City. This morning’s topic was marketing and distribution and consisted of panel discussions and case studies. The full schedule of events can be found at mipsummit.com. The intention of my remarks was to set the stage for the discussion that followed, and to throw out a few provocations to wake people up.

Minority Independent Producers SummitGood morning.

Before I start, I want to thank the Founding Members of MIPS for organizing this conference. I want to particularly thank Damian Bender for co-curating this morning’s Distribution and Marketing Pod as we’ve taken to calling it. I’m listed as the co-curator, but Damian is the one who did the heavy lifting, so I want to give him a big shout out.

When I was first approached about being on advisory board for a conference about underrepresented/minority producers of movies and television, I had a series of immediate responses swirling around in my head. Continue reading “Kickoff to the MIPS Marketing and Distribution Presentations”

Digimart 2006 Videos are Back

For those of you who are interested in the intersection between technology and storytelling, the Digimart 2006 videos, which were MIA for awhile, are back. Here is one of the panels on the “Future of Theatrical Exhibition,” in which I make an appearance. To see the rest of the videos from the 2006 conference, check out the Digimart Site. And you can check out my previous post about Digimart 2005.

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A Panel from 2005: My, How Things Have Changed!

DigimartIn 2005, I was invited to a conference in Montreal called Digimart, organized by Daniel Langlois and his team at Ex-Centris. It was a very early attempt to deal with the coming convergence of entertainment technologies, and they invited a star-studded array of speakers that represented the cutting edge of that time. I met many incredible people at the event, and even more the following year, when they invited many of us back for a second time. Some of the folks I met are now good friends and collaborators.

Recently it was pointed out to me that the videos of the conference sessions were no longer on line, so I contacted the good folks at La fondation Daniel Langlois, who are now trying to restore access to those videos. They’ve put back the sessions from the 2005 event, and are trying to locate the ones from 2006. Watching these videos, it’s incredible how far ahead of the curve many of the speakers were, and equally incredible how much has changed. You can find all the 2005 videos at the Digimart site. For a quick taste, below is the panel I was on, which was called, “More Digital Cinema Networks – Alternative & Independent Spaces.” I’ll post again if and when the 2006 videos reappear.

Comments after the break… Continue reading “A Panel from 2005: My, How Things Have Changed!”