Month: May 2017

According to writer Mark Harris, Hollywood is in deep crisis. He says that the atmosphere in the movie-making capital of the world is so cautious that most executives are afraid to try new formulas. So moviegoers are left with a continuous repetition of the same titles. This year alone, Hollywood has produced “Spy Kids 4,” “Final Destination 5,” more “Harry Potter,” more “Pirates of the Caribbean,” more and more of what we’ve seen before. There are common themes that both filmmakers and brands return to, time and time again.

In his book, Mark Harris asks: How did we get here? Today he has been invited to talk to reporter Barbara Walker about his recent article “The Day the Movies Died” and maybe he will be able to answer that question for us.

BARBARA WALKER: Mark, welcome to our show and thank you very much for accepting our invitation to talk about the situation in Hollywood.

MARK HARRIS: Thanks so much for inviting me. It’s a pleasure being here to talk to you and your listeners.

BARBARA WALKER: So how did we get here? In your book you say that Hollywood has almost completely lost interest in making any kind of movies for adult audiences.

Mr. HARRIS: Well, I think one of the reasons is that it now costs, in many cases, more to market a movie than it does to make the movie: up to $40 to $50 million for a regular studio movie, sometimes more for a big adventure movie. And because marketing is so expensive, the people who pay for it, that is, the advertisers, can decide what movies get made in the first place. And what they want are movies that are brands , and there’s not a lot of room for adult dramas based on just the quality of the story.

BARBARA WALKER: I’m interested in the examples that you offer in your book, and I want you to explain something. You said the problem, that is, the fact that there are very few movies made for adult audiences can in part be found in one specific film, “Top Gun”, perhaps the biggest success by Tom Cruise.

Mr. HARRIS: Exactly. A movie made in 1986. I think that that moment, the “Top Gun” moment, in the mid-’80s, was a moment when movies changed from being about the content to being about the image. In other words, if you put all the right elements together – the star, the noisy soundtrack, the special effects, the poster, and the slogan – you can actually make a movie that will appeal to the largest possible audience, a movie that isn’t necessarily very good quality, but that a lot of people can identify with.

BARBARA WALKER: So after “Top Gun”, what kind of movies stopped getting made? What kind of movies for adults are we missing? Could a movie like “Marathon Man” or “Taxi Driver” or “The Godfather” be made and be successful now?

Mr. HARRIS: Well, it actually can be very good business to make adult dramas, like ‘The Godfather” if you make them for, say, $40 million or less. You know, if you keep the cost under control, you can do very, very well. So, you know, even a movie like “The Social Network,” still needs a movie studio to say yes to it and pay for it, and that’s what’s really hard right now.

BARBARA WALKER: There’s another thing that I want to talk to you about before I let you go. You say that in these days, when marketing is everything, the audience is divided into groups that are based on age and gender. And as I read that sentence, my goodness, it is so depressing to find out that women in Hollywood are basically treated like garbage.

Charlie LeDuff, 34, is a reporter for the New York Times. He started his journalism career at age 29, after earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California. Part Native American, LeDuff was one of several reporters who worked at the New York Times series that was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in April 2001. He spent one month working at a pork slaughterhouse in North Carolina.

JournalismJobs.com: Mr LeDuff, where did you get your start as a journalist?

Charlie LeDuff: TheNew York Times was my first newspaper job. I was an intern for three months at the Alaska Fisherman’s Journal. That was my first publication-type job. But the first thing I ever wrote that got published? Well, my Russian friend in the Northeast got killed with alcohol. I just sort of wrote an obituary for the high school paper. And I wrote that and I think I wrote it pretty well. I felt good and I felt like, hey I’m smart enough. I can do this. That’s how I got started.

JournalismJobs.com: You’ve had a number of occupations before you became a reporter, right?

Charlie LeDuff: Oh yes, I worked as a school teacher and carpenter in Michigan and at a cannery in Alaska. I also worked as a baker in Denmark and as a bartender in Michigan, New York and Australia.  you can see, quite varied and all over the world.

JournalismJobs.com: Why did you decide to go into journalism?

Charlie LeDuff: I was with some friends in New York and we were talking about what we were going to do and some guy mentioned he was going to journalism school and I thought that would be cool. And it turned out that my parents were proud of my decision, although they didn’t think I could earn a lot of money doing it.

JournalismJobs.com: Let’s turn to your article now. Why did you pick this slaughterhouse in North Carolina to write your story?

Charlie LeDuff: The editor wanted me to look somewhere in the southern United States. It’s the biggest slaughterhouse in the world. I got to this town and there were a lot of Natives there and that was good. A lot of Lumbee Indians.

Pres.:Science for Life, the radio programme which is always first with the big Science and Technology stories. Today’s big story is about “cell phones”. How many working cell phones are there today in Europe? How many mobile phones are there in the whole world? How many cell phone addicts are there who can’t stand being away from their mobiles? And how many cell phone users shout their conversations in trains, supermarkets, museums, stations or parks. Are you one of them? If so, how do you think other people feel when you are speaking on your mobile, for example, in your morning train to college? Dr Bret is with us today to help us understand how people react to cell phones.

Pres.: Good afternoon, Dr. Bret and welcome to our weekly programme “Science for Life” .

DB: It’s a pleasure.

Pres.: Dr Bret is a Psychologist at the University of York in the UK. Doctor, do cell phones get on your nerves?

DB: Yes, they do and I guess they also annoy you and the majority of your audience. Am I right?

Pres.: Well. Personally I love using my mobile, but I also find it very irritating when other people use them. But is it really the same for everybody? Is this a general feeling?

DB: This is precisely the question we asked ourselves when we observed that many people, including cell phone users, reacted in similar ways when exposed to cell phone conversations in a variety of situations.

Pres.: So …

DB: So we designed an experiment to try and answer the question.

Pres.: An experiment? What did it consist of?

DB: It was a simple experiment. We wrote a one-minute conversation about a holiday and a surprise party. Then we asked two female actors to memorize and rehearse the script. They rehearsed and rehearsed until they felt comfortable with it. During their rehearsals we made sure that they could control their voices…err basically they had to be capable of maintaining a consistent volume in their conversation.

Pres.: Then …

DB: Then, when their performance was regular we placed the actors in either the waiting room of a bus station or on a train travelling between the cities of York and Sheffield. In these places they acted out their conversation in two different ways.

Interviewer (Int.) – This evening, at “Pole Position”, our programme for the world of races, we have a very special guest. He has been World Champion three times. He’s starting his career as a GP racer next season: a new challenge to beat. Behind him, a story of self-discipline, courage, hard work and intelligence. This is our guest this evening, Dani Stoner, 20 years old and already an experienced winner.

Int. – Good evening, Mr. Stoner, and welcome to our programme.

D.S. – Good evening.

Int. – Should I call you Mr. Stoner, or do you prefer to be called Dani?

D. S. – Dani, please. I’m only 20 years old, and I don’t think any people my age would like to be called Mr, or Ms, either!

Int. – Dani, then. How do you feel being a world-known idol at your age?

D.S. – To tell you the truth, it is strange, and I am not used to this kind of fame yet. People ask you for an autograph… that’s all right with me; but the feeling of being watched all the time as you walk by, that’s not easy. But I’ll get used to it, I’m sure.

Int. – 240 kilometres an hour, that is really fast! Don’t you ever feel scared?

D.S. – You can’t think about that when you take a bend at full speed and the contact surface of your tyres against the track is just one centimetre wide. No, I can’t feel scared.

Int. – I see… . You ran the last races of the world championship with a broken arm. Can you also control pain?

D.S. – If the pain is very strong there’s nothing you can control. But the pain in the last races was not as strong as that. If you start to run and you concentrate on the race, the bike and your opponents, you don’t think of the pain at all.

Int. – Amazing! Let’s talk about your beginnings. What are your first memories on a bike?

D.S. – I’ve seen some pictures of myself on a battery-operated Vespa that my parents gave me when I was one and a half years old. But my first memories go back to an Italjet 50 that my father tuned up with side wheels when I was four years old.

Int. – Weren’t you scared?

D.S. – I can’t really remember. It was like a game to me, like children when they play football or learn to ski. Of course there were risks, but I guess my parents made sure everything was safe. If you learn a sport when you are very young, you learn to gain control very easily. That is probably the most positive aspect in taking up a sport discipline very early in your life.