DEATH SELLS - GUN VIOLENCE INCREASING IN CINEMA

Daniel Craig's Bond features 59 killings per film ... With Sean Connery it was 11! See Guardian for analysis of the campaign to limit screen gin violence and the industry resistance to this (citing 'its what the international market wants'!)

Bitcoin or NFT funds film and TV - coin-holders decide narrative every episode

Heard of this by watching Mila Kunis on Hot Ones.

NFTs are a form of cryptocurrency, using blockchain technology to develop and maintain encrypted data that acts as a tradeable commodity like shares.

Kunis is the lead name on two projects, alongside husband Ashton Kutcher: a film (Gimmick) and animated 'TV' series (Stoner Cats).

Stoner Cats is the ultimate in disruption. It steps outside the walled garden of the TV conglomerates (heavily linked to the familiar big 5 of film) for financing and distribution. Bits of the NFT (non-fungible token) were sold at $800 for a total $8.1m. Buyers become theoretical owners of the show, which can only be viewed by NFT holders! They also get 2.5% of every future sale of their NFT fragment - with some initial resales already suggesting the value has soared to a total $80m!

It's a crazy idea, but one that has worked and takes the Kickstarter/Patreon model of audience engagement in production financing to a new level, including those fortnightly votes to determine the outcome of cliffhanger endings for the next episode. I'm sure the show will leak online, but that still probably won't particularly impact the increasing value of the trading NFT despite that literally devaluing the concept.

See this Bitcoin site for more (beware the plethora of ads encouraging gambling).

4K Re-release of Blade as MCU pulls a Terminator

Just as Arnie's Termination went back in time to reshape the future, Disney/Marvel, having announced a franchise reboot in 2019, have resuscitated the 1998 classic Blade. From the shades to the notes of humour being infrequent to maintain the sombre, dark tone, Blade was influenced by Cameron's initial pair of iconic movies.

The cost of the 4K restoration which is the marketing hook for this re-release isn't stated, but as a ballpark figure the spate of post-production 3D renderings that followed another Cameron smash, Avatar, was around $10m a pop.

In this glorious era of convergence (see Henry Jenkins and fellow technotopians, initially at least, David Gauntlett and Dan Gillmor for the web 2.0 gospels ... and Andrew Keen for his searing web 3.0 surveillance capitalism rebuttal) the Indies and even bedroom producers can compete with the big 5 vertically integrated global conglomerate behemoths.

An occasional exception (eg Slumdog Millionaire, or horror franchises like Saw) notwithstanding, the marketing muscle of franchise-stuffed conglomerates, now further fuelled by their own subscription platforms, maintains their deathly grip on the monetisation of eyeballs worldwide.

If I get the chance, I'll join the hordes myself - this was an excellent movie, pre-dating the ever-more-tedious MCU (pending Blade reboot, scheduled for 2022, and all) - I'd love an Emmerdale-type reset, wiping out most of the smug, supercilious supes to join Downey Jnr's rusty Iron Man. The 1st sequel was campy but still cool, but by the 3rd it's star Snipes was well on the path that led him to his career-ending jail stint.

See Guardian for more - or a cinema near you to feed the malevolent Mouse your cheddar.

Wokeness

Some sample stories on the growing trend for online/social media pressure to impact on behaviours of companies and 'talent' alike...

BLOODSTOCK EXTREME METAL FESTIVAL ORGANISER STEPS DOWN OVER TRANSPHOBIC TWEETS

A typical example, and good indicator that wokeness/political correctness extends into fields stereotypically retrograde in their approach. See LouderSound.

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A2 Exam topic Media Ecology

 The 'definition' of this is very broad, so I'll be posting quite a variety of content. The best thing you can do is ... read, and read frequently, to build up your wider, general knowledge of the media. We'll look at case studies, but you need broad-based knowledge to succeed with this topic. It does incorporate web 2.0 as part of how the media environment, landscape, ecology has changed, and general industry shifts; evolution in production, distribution and consumption/exchange.

This is an overall A2 exam outline; link if the embed is problematic.

A2 exam basics from DB3igs

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