Category Archives: Media

Interview: James Bond 007 Series Producers Barbara Broccoli, 59 And Michael G. Wilson, 77 (Variety UK)

From a Variety.com online interview (January 17, 2020):

Variety The U.K. Issue Family Bond 007 magazine cover January 2020“He brought flesh and blood to the character,” she says. “Bond in the novel is a silhouette. Daniel has given him depth and an inner life. We were looking for a 21st-century hero, and that’s what he delivered. He bleeds; he cries; he’s very contemporary.”

(On Daniel Craig)

“For better or worse, we are the custodians of this character,” says Barbara Broccoli, who oversees the franchise with her half-brother Michael G. Wilson. “We take that responsibility seriously.”

Eon Productions James Bond 007 Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli

It’s an arrangement that was first hammered out by Broccoli’s father, the producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, when John F. Kennedy was president and the Twist was all the rage. Miraculously, that pact has prevailed through the decades and generations, enduring everything from corporate mergers and bankruptcies to shifting consumer tastes and geopolitical upheavals. The elder Broccoli died in 1996. but not before ceding control to his two children with the 1995 release of “GoldenEye,” a film that proved a sexist superspy, conceived by novelist Ian Fleming in the 1950s, still had a role to play in post-Cold War cinema.

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Interviews: 59-Year Old Artist & Writer Jessica Helfand (CalTech)

From a CalTech Matters online article:

Jessica Helfand Caltech Matters Credit - Maggie Peters
Jessica Helfand – Photo by Maggie Peters in Caltech Matters

“Observation is observation. Looking, listening, thinking, conjecturing … all original ideas begin with a kind of scrutiny that is at once framed by discipline and open to discovery. Because I have always taught students in a university, not in an art school, I think I have a baseline understanding of what it means to approach the visual world from a different place. Teaching non-artists is always a little bit like being a foreign exchange student. Therein lies the challenge—and, I suspect, the fun.”

January 7, 2020 – This month, artist, designer, and writer Jessica Helfand joins Caltech as the Winter 2020 artist-in-residence in the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences’ Caltech-Huntington Program in Visual Culture, which is administered jointly by the division and The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Helfand is a former contributing editor and columnist for PrintEye and Communications Arts magazines, and founding editor of the website Design Observer. She taught at Yale for two decades and has held artist residencies at the American Academy in Rome and the Bogliasco Foundation, among others. Her most recent book, Face: A Visual Odyssey, was published by MIT Press last fall. On January 16, Helfand will take part in a noontime talk with Bren Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Biology Ralph Adolphs on the theme of the “face.”

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Interview Podcasts: 68-Year Old “Fresh Air” Host Terry Gross (New Yorker)

The New Yorker Politics and More PodcastsDavid Remnick has appeared as the guest of Terry Gross on “Fresh Air” a number of times over the years, talking about Russia, Muhammad Ali, and other subjects. Hosting “Fresh Air” for nearly forty-five years, Gross is a defining voice of NPR, and is perhaps the most celebrated interviewer of our time. 

In October, 2019, the tables turned, and Gross joined Remnick as his guest for a live interview at The New Yorker Festival. They spoke about how she first found her way to the microphone, the role of feminism in establishing NPR, the limits of her expertise, and what she has had to give up to prepare for serious conversations day after day.

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Interviews: 63-Year Old Author John ‘Rick’ MacArthur On His Book About Graham Greene

On Meet The Writers this week, Georgina Godwin talks to John ‘Rick’ MacArthur about his new book ‘Graham Greene: The Last Interview’. 

Rick is the scion of a great American philanthropic family but, in his own right, a veteran journalist, author and president of ‘Harper’s Magazine’, the second oldest continuous publication in the US. We take a look at how Graham Greene traversed the space between journalism and fiction and brought truth into sharp focus through his storytelling.

Meet The Writers John 'Rick' McArthur Monocle 24

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Animation Artists: James Curran Creates World’s Top “Looping GIF’s” (Video)

A selection of GIFs from my NYC, LA and Tokyo Gifathons remastered in 3D. Each inspired by something that happened during my 30 day stays in each city.

See all the looping GIFs on Twitter and Instagram with #3DGifathon

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Best TV Ads Of 2019: Ryan Reynolds “Aviation Gin” Parody Ads Are “Brilliant Marketing” (Videos)

From a Marketing Land online article:

Soon after the spot aired, actor and liquor brand owner Ryan Reynolds cashed in on the drama – and marketers everywhere scrambled to pick their jaws up off the floor. The ad spot for Ryan Reynold’s liquor brand, Aviation Gin, cast the same actress from the Peloton ad — in a sequel that tells the story of where the Peloton Woman is now. Spoiler: She’s downing Aviation Gin in a bar with two friends, wallowing in the aftermath of Peloton’s ill-conceived commercial. We’ll toast to that.

It’s the holiday ad that caught fire for all the wrong reasons: A young, seemingly fit woman is gifted a Peloton stationary bike (presumably by her husband) and proceeds to vlog her fitness journey over the course of a year.

The ad, produced by creative agency Mekanism, went viral almost immediately, sparking criticism about Peloton’s unhealthy depictions of body image and marriage – not to mention the “Peloton Woman’s” concerning expressions (which some have quipped resembles a face of fear). Naturally, Twitter users couldn’t contain themselves, dragging the cringe-worthy campaign with labels like sexist, elitist, and entirely unrealistic.

To read more: https://marketingland.com/how-the-peloton-woman-in-aviation-gins-ad-will-be-a-case-study-on-marketing-genius-for-years-to-come-272503

Top New Media Books: “Mag Men – Fifty Years Of Making Magazines”

Richly illustrated with the covers and interiors that defined their careers, Mag Men is bursting with vivid examples of Bernard and Glaser’s work, designed to encapsulate their distinctive approach to visual storytelling and capture the major events and trends of the past half century.

Columbia University Press logoFor more than fifty years, Walter Bernard and Milton Glaser have revolutionized the look of magazine journalism. In Mag Men, Bernard and Glaser recount their storied careers, offering insiders’ perspective on some of the most iconic design work of the twentieth century. The authors look back on and analyze some of their most important and compelling projects, from the creation of New York magazine to redesigns of such publications as TimeFortuneParis Match, and The Nation, explaining how their designs complemented a story and shaped the visual identity of a magazine.

Mag Men Fifty Years of Making Magazines by Walter Bernard and Milton Glaser Dec 2019

Highlighting the importance of collaboration in magazine journalism, Bernard and Glaser detail their relationships with a variety of writers, editors, and artists, including Nora Ephron, Tom Wolfe, Gail Sheehy, David Levine, Seymour Chwast, Katherine Graham, Clay Felker, and Katrina vanden Heuvel. The book features a foreword by Gloria Steinem, who reflects on her work in magazines and her collaborations with Bernard and Glaser. At a time when uncertainty continues to cloud the future of print journalism, Mag Men offers not only a personal history from two of its most innovative figures but also a reminder and celebration of the visual impact and sense of style that only magazines can offer.

To read more and/or purchase: http://cup.columbia.edu/book/mag-men/9780231191807

Media: 41% Of Americans Believe News Has Become Less Reliable, 44% No Change (Rand Corp, 2019)

From a Rand.org online release:

Rand Corporation LogoMany people (41 percent) indicated that they believed that news has become less reliable than in the past; a similar number (44 percent) said they believed there has been no change; and 15 percent said they thought news is more reliable now.

Different demographic groups get their news in different ways

  • People whose primary news sources are social media and in-person contacts are generally younger and female, and they tend to have less education than a college degree and lower household incomes.
  • People whose primary news sources are print publications and broadcast television tend to be be significantly older, and they are less likely to be married.
  • People whose primary news source is radio are significantly more likely to be male, less likely to be retired, and more likely to have a college degree.
  • People whose primary news sources are online platforms are significantly younger, more likely to be male and have a college degree and higher income, and less likely to be black.

Attitudes toward the reliability of news are mixed

  • Overall, 44 percent reported that they believed “the news is as reliable now as in the past.”
  • Nearly the same amount — 41 percent — reported a belief that the news has become less reliable.
  • A minority (15 percent) said that they believed that the news is more reliable now.
  • There was an association between news consumption profiles and perceptions of reliability — people who relied more heavily on online, radio, and social media/in-person platforms to obtain news were less likely to say that news is more reliable now than in the past.

Rand News Study Respondents' Most Used News Source

Rand News Study Respondents' Top Two Most-Used News Source

 

To view full Rand Study: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR4212.html?utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=RAND%20Policy%20Currents+AEM:%20%20Email%20Address%20NOT%20LIKE%20DOTMIL&utm_campaign=AEM:631600804

Streaming Services: Baby Boomers Remain Base Of Traditional PayTV But Are Slowly Cutting The Cord

From a Harvard Business Review article:

Harvard Business ReviewBaby boomers remain the base of traditional PayTV.  Even with the quickening decline of bundled TV services, 80 million U.S. households still subscribe to cable, satellite, and fiber-based video services.

Well over half of all older consumers are already subscribing to at least one streaming service, with a quarter of Americans over age 50 having cut the cord to linear services by the end of 2018.

Harvard Business Review Streaming ServicesThe traditional video marketplace is no more. Driven by a combination of technologies including high-speed internet access, billions of mobile devices, and falling prices for high-resolution displays, television as we have known it for decades is undergoing a radical reinvention, one that will reshape the media ecosystem. Just in the last few months, game-changing streaming services have been announced or launched from industry giants including Disney and NBCUniversal, spurred in part by billion-dollar investments from newer entrants such as Netflix, Google, and Apple.

To read more: https://hbr.org/2019/11/for-streaming-services-navigating-generational-differences-is-key