Digital journalism and movie industry

This post is based on For The New York Times, the digital future is now

 

It seems that print-paper news age has faced a great challenge, the industry itself is walking forward into the time of digital journalism.

In the article For The New York Times, the digital future is now, as the author concluded at the introduction paragraph, via using semacodes, The New York Times could make it possible for users with cell phone cameras to quickly and easily get access to the paper’s latest video stories in the future, as well as movie trailers and other video content, all by photographing the special digital symbols.

We can not only view movie trailers and videos on mobile phones, we could but also make movies with mobile phones, too. Although it took hundred years for printed book to transform into eBook, movies, however, it only took about one hundred years for the celluloid film which was firstly produced in 1888 to become mobile phone-made films. We could not deny that mobile phone is one of the greatest inventions for our human beings.

Since nowadays, most cell phones come with built-in GPS, some smart newspaper agency is considering the possibility to provide a variety of content to its readers according to their locations, they also think about creating new technology which might automatically determine whether the reader is travelling very quickly between signal towers, for example, they are driving in the high way, then the news story would be transformed into an audio file.

However, no matter how fast and smart the digital journalism is developing, there will never be an end of printed newspapers, and the printed edition of the newspaper will always be ready for its readers. But regardless of whether you choose to read an actual newspaper or not, it is very obvious that digital journalism will become the major trend in the future.

Film and politics

This post is based on Democrats vs. Republicans: Stars they Won’t Pay to See; Movies They Hate and Love

Paul Bond, the author of his news, summarized six points that differentiate the preference of democrats and republicans when they watch movies and which actors they thought to be unworthy to pay to see. The six points were combined with elements from both politics and film industry. This type of news angle is not that common, we barely see news talked about the relationship between films and political parties. The author also point out the impacts that politics bring on the box office of a movie. According to him, 35 % of Republicans and 45 % of Tea Partiers admitted that they might be influenced by the political position or actions of  a celebrity before they decide whether to go to cinema to see their films or not, and only 20% of Democrats agreed with them.

From the other perspective, we could also say that American film industry (or the famous Hollywood) has also had affected U.S politics and the fundamental nature of U.S political system. There is one person that we could not ignore, Michael Moore, who produced the famous anti-Bush film “Fahrenheit 9 / 11″ before the 2004 election. And in the new election season in 2007, his film “Slacker Uprising” was put on the internet for all the audience to free download. The film is a documentary which recorded how Moore came across each state’s vote ‘battleground’ in the states in 2004 to encourage young Americans to vote for the election. Just the first three days it released, more than two million people watched the film.

Democracy does not come naturally, there is always the dark side of  human with selfish, the key is that we need someone who could  constantly stand up and loudly express their wishes, protect their rights, and sometimes film could have an effect on it, positive or negative, anyway.

New trend in Film industry: working with mobile media

This post is based on Short Film Story Gets Longer with Mobile Media, International Awards

 

As the news concludes at the first paragraph, thanks to new mobile media presentation platforms, mobile film is getting a longer look. This news tries to express an idea that “shorter is better” and expects the brighter future of mobile film industry.

According to Cheng and Bruns, nowadays mobile phone is becoming so popular and it is definitely an indispensable part of our daily life. What’s more, mobile phone is necessarily an ongoing, never-complete process negotiated between everyday users, corporate service providers, and government regulators.
With the help of its fabulous functions and the ubiquitous of mobile network, cell phone has transformed into a platform that everyone could share their self-made short films with their friends or even strangers everywhere. Novel and interesting short films can be developed in some unique ways in order to spread via mobile phones – the so-called fourth screen. Now more and more mobile film festivals are held to encourage ordinary citizens to show their creativity as a director, a screenwriter also a photographer and to promote awareness of mobile film amongst the public.

You can get international film festival awards with a video taken by mobile phones? This sounds incredible, but in January this year in Berlin Film Festival, Korean director Park Chan-wook and his brother Park Chan-King shot the video “Night Fishing “with an iPhone4 and it beat a group of works shot by professional cameras and won the Golden Bear for best short film. The success for the film “Night Fishing” no doubt opens a window, with the continuously upgrade of intelligent video technology; mobile phone will also be a new medium of filming.

Are you a fast food lover? — Supersize me (2004)

This post is based on the supersize me by Christina Lee

 

I would like to highlight this excellent sentence in the review “Super Size Me is not a documentary solely about McDonald’s. It uses … …the lawful ruthlessness of advertising campaigns as it wrestles with issues of personal responsibility. “

What we could see in this film is the subtle way that fast food / food industry made to transform the poor Americans’ stomach successfully into a magic machine which can stuffing cane Sugar and fat with cash return. The most shocking method is the McDonald’s in-store children playing facilities which make American have a sense of belonging with McDonald’s from their childhood, so that they grow up to become loyal customers. This is similar to the product that tobacco company produce: one kind of imitation cigarettes plastic toys for children as they can practice holding cigarette at young age and it is not easily be found by the society. Of course, this systematic ‘training addiction “must be agreed by the Political, and this is the reason why the lobbyists stay in Washington.

　　
This film is lively, humorous and slightly ironic. Such as the women in the street cannot remember the Oath swearing to flag, but remember every word of McDonald’s advertisement; such as children do not know George W. Bush or Jesus, they will instantly recognize the McDonald’s clown. Obviously the author hopes to let wider population know the ugly truth.
It is a little bit contrast whether to treat the readers as citizens or consumers. If the media treat them as citizens, then the notice role of news is more important; but if the media treat them as consumers, then newspapers is more likely to pay the least cost, and get the most readerships. They will focus more on the Unique Selling Proposition of then content rather than multiple perspectives.

The truth behind tobacco — The insider (1999)

Have a look of this The insider (1999) before you read my post

 

I really agree with this paragraph in the review: “As head of research and development for B & W, Wigand thought – or at least, convinced himself he thought – that he was working for the public good, to help develop a less harmful cigarette utilizing a nicotine substitute.”

As a famous news producer, Bergman, he is very sensitive to any potential problems in the news, no matter for his professional or social ethics; he must reveal the truth at all costs. Behind the cigarette issue, what we could see is whether the market-driven journalism is beneficial to a “certain group of people” or the rest of the world.

The most direct expression in Market-driven newspapers is the content of the news, because it is a direct response to how the newspaper meets the readers ‘need, so it is called “market-driven journalism”. Market-driven will lead to the shift or the revolution of the function of the press media:

1. Business logic and journalism logic is in opposition to each other,  “professional” can increase the analysis in the news, when facing serious problems, it has an enlightenment function; “commercial” is a market-oriented idea, seeking certain profits made within a fixed period of time, the concept of using funds and making profits is different.

2. The contradiction of select from news and entertainment, Bagdikian (1991) said that serious reports with suspect would destroy the advertising messages; market-oriented advertisers are more interested in entertainment news. Therefore, driven by high profits, newspapers and television news are easily shift to entertainment section, in order to reduce production costs and pursuit more profit, the media will take measures to spend a minimum cost and reduce outdoor interviews, lower news quality and this change is not really respond to the needs of readers. The reality is — Tobacco is not healthy to everyone, but tobacco commercials are shown in TV, magazine, posters everywhere.
 
All I have to say is that it takes a strong man to save himself, and a great man to save another.

All The President’s Men – What is the freedom in Journalism?

This article is based on ‘All the president’s men’  written by Matt Slovick who is the staff in washingtonpost.

 

This review is so interesting for these two reasons:

1. This review is posted in washingtonpost, which is the main character in this film ‘all the president’s men’.

2. Both this review and film are really close to the topic of this subject – citizen journalist and journalism.

Recently I just watched this film and I deeply understood the spirit of the citizen journalism in this film. This review is more about a movie, rather than what happened on the Watergate incident. “We firmly believe what they reported.” Pursuit of truth and the desire of freedom are the attitude that the citizen journalists should have. Protection of the freedom of the press, freedom of speech could also protect a country’s future.

You can imagine how excited a citizen journalist would be if he see this film. This issue should be a key point in journalism history in the world. After this, even in a country claiming to be freedom and democracy like the United States, there has also been a decline in press freedom, the two young reporters, Woodward and Bernstein let those politicians know, how terrible
the power of the media can have.

Once the ordinary people have the right to speak, they will always lose something. The freedom of journalism seems very sacred for the weak, but for those who are in power, it’s like the annoying flies buzzing, so the rulers have to control them.

Do you remember Smurfs in your youth?

This article is based on the ‘Smurfs in town’  written by Shalveen Chand from

 

This online news was posted in an American online news website called ‘The Fiji times online’ and it is about The Smurfs. The Smurfs is a cartoon which was played during last 5 decades all around the world. Recently it has been remade to be a brand new 3D film which is suitable for both adult and children. 

 

This review recalled some pieces of the Smurfs as well as the beautiful memory of our childhood. Chand used unique reporting skills with flashback. He introduces the plots of this movie, and also inserts his opinions of Smurfs. I think different audiences have different ideas and memories about Smurfs. I really agree with ‘I also had a laugh out loud more like LMAO riot with Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman combining to give a comedy on how people wish life was, well not what it is’, the beginning year of Smurfs was a dark age, Smurfs provides a space for children to laugh, to feel warm. The main characters showed their ideas about how life could be. Therefore, Smurfs encouraged a lot of children, even adults to be optimistic and smile to welcome every day. Beyond all doubt, the box office of Smurfs is excellent since it attracts different age groups.

 

As Chand said, the adults would think that they are back to kids when they watched it. I really like the way that this news reported. The words and sentences he used are simple and attractive to audiences. Although he may not be a professional writer, in 21 century, bloggers can be anyone and there is an open banner of free speech. There is no boundary between journalist and we ordinary bloggers, authorities are also aware if your audience is involved. As blogs can be utilized by anyone for any purpose, some PR agencies create fake blogs to generate interest in their clients’ product.

Become the world’s youngest billionaire

This article is based on the post ‘The social network’ written by ROGER EBERT / September 29, 2010

 

Actually I had to say this review is excellent!

Maybe it is a little bit serious to talk about the nature of journalists and journalism in relating to online news focused on the area of film, there is still something that we could discuss. Maybe we wannna ask, can an ordinary movie critic be a journalist as well? Whether he is ethical enough or not? We could look at his review first then make a decision.

Started with the simple introduction of the main character of this film: Mark Zuckerburg, who is the founder of the famous social network facebook and he is the richest young man in his age in the world, Roger then explained to us that “”The Social Network” is a great film not because of its dazzling style or visual cleverness, but because it is splendidly well-made.” He thought highly of the movie lines, we cannot ignore the genius of the screenwriter, Asron Sorkin, he has strong language skills, and the intensive dialogues made audiences breathless, two hours without a minute of waste, you should listen to how Harvard’s elite speak: precisem sharp, strong, no comma, light/sec speed, it is really interesting to see how genius fight. This film is not about how facebook was created, although the focus of the film is indeed the found of facebook, the theme of the film is traditional: friendship, money, loyalty and betratal, and the story of power and class.

Though it’s hard to classify this author or his blog, I think it at least could be seen as a platform which exchanges messages with credibility.

Ends up with a sentence that I like, the social network reminds us of how lonely we all are, and we will always be so regardless of the innovations of new forms of media.

Best movie of the year to date?

This blog entry is based on the article Rise of the Planet of the Apes (12A) written by Roz Laws :

Looking at the structure design of this website at the first sight, in fact, the Sunday Mercury tries to fulfil the readers’ information needs, such as different types of share including facebook, twitter, more movie trailer section, most popular article section, I shall say the site’s information architects have did a good job at meeting readers’ demands.

This online news is about a new film called ‘The Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ which is a thrilling movie with the sense of violence. This news mentioned about the original novel and the next section of this movie which was published in last century, and introduced the main plots and clues of this film that is a prequel to The Planet of the Apes.

One thing I would like to point out is that the author talked too much details of the movie and it would affect the audiences’ interests of buying a ticket to watch it. As same as this news said, ‘what is especially pleasing about the movie is how, unlike many films, it gets better as it goes along and builds to a spectacular finale on the Golden Gate Bridge’, the British director Rupert Wyatt expressed its unique by choosing special location and combining with the relationship of human and gorilla. The climax he made was successful.  However, it’s a debatable topic in our society. Different areas of work have different ideas of how to deal with the relationship between human and animal; nevertheless, human need to have the responsibility to protect the animals. Therefore this suggestion the news gave is worth thinking deeply about.

Anyway, if the author could have talked less about the content of the movie and made more comments on the controversal topics and the highlight of the filming technique, this news would be much more interesting for movie fans.

American film industry attracts foreign brands

This article is based on the news ‘Chinese brands invade Transformers 3’  written By Rick Martin, Penn-Olson’

To talk about finding this online news, it was published in yahoo! Singapore, which is a really famous web portal all around the world. For a search engine like yahoo!, it replaced Google’s search engine on its site with its own engine. Though I typed the key words “Chinese brands” and ‘Transformer 3′ in both yahoo! and Google, I can only found this news via Google which uses the Algorithm system.

In my personal opinion, Rick’s news story introduced the detailed information of the four Chinese brands that appeared in Transformer 3, each name of the four brands, the products including the situation that they were on; however, he did not give his personal criticism about this issue as he wrote in his title. Since he chose the word ‘invade ‘ for his title, he should explain to the reader that how big is the momentum that Chinese brands come in to American films and if possible, talk something about the current product placement situation in U.S film industry and Hollywood. As he wrote in the last paragraph, ‘While four Chinese brands in one film may seem like a lot, that’s only the tip of the iceberg as there are 68 brands in total represented in the movie.’ it seems a little bit conflict to the title.

American filmmakers came to realize the great potential of commercial interest that China and its film market has, both China and US audiences like to see Chinese elements and this is to meet their entertainment needs, they are mainly attractive to young people.  Hollywood is a mutual industry and driven by commercial interests, the main goal of making film is to meet the tastes of the audience. As a result, it will become a new trend that more and more Chinese brands or even actors and directors will appear in U.S stage and of course it is a win-win situation for the film producer and the corporate.