January 21, 2021

Want to Be a Hollywood Player? Covid and Streaming Have Changed All the Rules (wsj.com)

Streaming hit Hollywood fast. In its wake, the industry is racing to find a new way of doing business, rethinking who’s in charge, how contracts are set up and how stars get paid.

Studios are overturning their management ranks, empowering executives with backgrounds in business development, technology and strategy. Producers, filmmakers and actors such as Will Smith and Tom Hanks are trying to protect their interests in new contracts that aren’t built around ticket sales in movie theaters.

With most theaters in the U.S. closed and studios sitting on billions of dollars of unreleased movies, corporate parents see streaming as their best opportunity for growth. Last year’s domestic box-office revenues were just $2.28 billion, down from $11.4 billion in 2019, according to Comscore.

By: R.T. Watson

Continue Reading at wsj.com

FilmTT and Eastern Credit Union partner to support the industry (looptt.com)

The Trinidad and Tobago Film Company (FilmTT) is partnering with Eastern Credit Union (ECU) for the first-ever financial collaboration within the local film industry.

To highlight the magnitude of this relationship; FilmTT, exporTT and ECU are inviting film industry professionals to a free Zoom webinar on Tuesday, January 26 at 10 am.

This partnership was born when FilmTT and exporTT proposed that ECU come on board and lead the way in this paramount financial collaboration.

Eastern Credit Union, recognising the importance of the creative sector to the quality of life of all citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, leapt at the opportunity to provide support to creative projects.

Continue Reading at looptt.com

TV Talk: Pittsburgh TV production bounces back; CMU grad stars in ‘Bridge and Tunnel’ (triblive.com)

Netflix’s horror series “Archive 81” has been filming in and around Pittsburgh since November and will be joined in a couple of weeks by another Netflix program, “The Chair.” Showtime’s “Rust” expects to film in March.

Beyond these three series, 2021 local big-budget TV/film production is in a holding pattern. All $70 million of Pennsylvania’s film tax credits for 2020-2021 have been claimed. (Hollywood productions invariably seek out filming locations that offer a tax incentive.)

Pittsburgh Film Office director Dawn Keezer is waiting for the Pennsylvania legislature to re-authorize the state’s film tax credit program, often a political football, for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Pa. Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Washington, will introduce legislation to increase the Pennsylvania film tax credit program cap from $70 million to $125 million annually. Bartolotta grew up in Southern California and has worked in the entertainment industry on camera (in Pittsburgh-filmed “The Fault in Our Stars”) and behind the scenes (she executive produced the 2014 indie movie “Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies,” filmed in Charleroi).

By: Rob Owen

Continue Reading at triblive.com