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  • All Blogs/ Entertainment Industry Insights: Apr. 27 2021 | Up-To-Date Actor

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New Projects - Oscar Analysis - TV Production Back to Pre-Pandemic - Scandal & Upheaval - Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives

By Abigail Hardin, April 27, 2021

Eye617

It should come as no surprise that over the past few days a large portion of the news cycle has been nothing but Oscars. As we have been monitoring news feeds for almost two years now it has been so interesting to observe the trends of the industry - how announcements coincide with festival season, pilot season cycle domination, and the inevitable award season hangover. And that's where it feels like where we are today, the Awards season hangover. The question remains in this post-pandemic world, just how long it will last.

I don't know about you, but the return of nice weather has made it harder for me to focus. Between the excitement of restaurants and movie theatres opening again and the budding green around, I'm having to put on my blinders and do my best to drive on. One thing I have taken away from the pandemic however is to listen to myself and honor what I am currently feeling. That might mean an extra few minutes walking the dog, stopping to make a good lunch, or just releasing the need to solve every little thing immediately. So I encourage you to listen to your body and mind. Take an extra little break when needed.

Have a great week!

Upcoming Workshops

As I mentioned last week, Annie and I will be taking some time off from our free workshop schedule. So don't miss our next workshop on May 6th with The Growing Studio. This will be our last workshop for at least a month. Bring all of your career and Up-To-Date Actor questions, and we'll help you get organized to make the most of this Spring and Summer.

Oscars

Did you watch the Oscars this past Sunday? What did you think of the format?? The producers stated prior that they wanted to avoid a glorified "webinar" and the Zoom-less event did pack more glamour than recent pandemic televised award ceremonies, but overall the show lacked the pizazz of "movie love" promised. I don't know about you, but I greatly missed the clips of each actor nominated prior to being announced in their category. Instead, the celebrity announcer rattled off some (seemingly heartfelt) chatter about the nominated actor and their remarkable performance. Even having seen many of the films, it would have been nice to actually see a snippet of that remarkable actor instead of having to listen to a description - seeing is believing and I lost interest early on.

Apparently, I wasn't alone in. The ceremony's ratings were down a whopping 58% to a record low of a measly 9.85 million viewers, with a dismal rating of 1.9 among the 18-49 demographic. Yikes!

While nowhere near perfect, the Oscars did manage to take several diversity and inclusion strides this year - largely in response to last year's #OscarsSoWhite. Many award winners made history by being the first person of color to and/or woman to take home that specific honor. Several of these include:

  • Chloé Zhao (NOMADLAND) is the second woman and first woman of color to win Best Director
  • Yuh-jung Youn (MINARI) won Best Actress in a Supporting Role, making history as the first Korean
  • Daniel Kaluuya is the first non-white British actor to win an Academy Award for acting
  • Mia Neal, Jamika Wilson, and Sergio Lopez-Rivera won for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for their work on MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM, Neal and Wilson became the first Black women to win the honor

The biggest surprise of the night was Anthony Hopkins' win for Best Leading Actor over Chadwick Boseman. The whole event was colored by this even more so given the change of format where both Leading Actor awards were announced after Best Picture, a move only done once in the Oscars 93-year history. It seems safe to say the producers assumed Boseman would win and the ceremony would end on a heartfelt note. Instead, everyone was surprised and Hopkins wasn't even there to accept the award.

NOMADLAND came out as the victor with three wins. While Netflix had the most nominations (36) and the most wins (7) out of any studio, the streaming giant has yet to take home the golden goose - Best Picture. Here is a list of all of the winners.

For more in-depth reading, check out some of the vast Oscar coverage:

Netflix - Top Brass, Top Dollar 🤑

As evidenced by their towering Oscar nominations and awards, Netflix is looking to be a dominant force in quality original content. And that ain't cheap. Netflix revealed that it will spend over $17 billion on content this year, according to its first-quarter earnings report. That’s a notable uptick from the streamer’s 2020 spend of $11.8 billion, as the pandemic prompted production delays across the industry, and a 2019 content spend of $13.9 billion. That's a pretty big financial commitment considering Netflix’s subscriber growth cooled dramatically in the first quarter of 2021 after record pandemic-fueled gains last year — and the streamer added about 2 million fewer customers than it previously expected.

One way the company is looking to recoup lost revenue is by tightening security and cracking down on password-sharing. Netflix estimates they could reap billions in lost revenue. "We test many things but we would never roll something out that feels like turning the screws" on consumers, Co-CEO Reed Hastings said during the company’s first-quarter earnings interview. "It’s got to feel like it makes sense to consumers, that they understand it." The tests, which were revealed earlier this year, aim to "harmonize with the way consumers think about it," Hastings added.

I guess they need every penny they can get considering that co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos earned $43.2 million and $39.3 million, respectively, in 2020, representing sizable pay increases for the two men. Something doesn't seem right when the co-CEOs manage to get a pay-increases with subscribers down, and looking to squeeze comparative pennies out of their customers in the middle of a pandemic when vast swaths of the nation lost their job and were told to stay inside for over 12 months. But what do I know... 🤷‍♀️

Reopening
TV

Big production news! On-location filming of TV shows in Los Angeles reached pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of 2021 – the second quarter in a row that it’s hit that milestone, according to the latest report from FilmLA, the city and county film permit office. However, film and commercial production are still significantly down. This might be partially due to the high demand for continued network and streaming serial content as well as the high cost and compounded pandemic complications to film production.

Theatre

All signs are looking good for theatre reopening nationwide. California is increasing the indoor event capacity for "yellow" tier counties to 75% and Los Angeles, which is currently an "orange" tier, will be open at 50%.

Cirque du Soleil announced the reopening of four of its most iconic shows, two in Las Vegas, one touring company in the Dominican Republic, and one in London. As I mentioned last week, this is a huge bode of confidence in global readiness and the ability to be able to gather indoors in large numbers again.

Again, I'm repeating myself from last week, but regional theatre really is back! New seasons and audition announcements are being posted daily. Here is an article on a select few productions coming to larger cities this Summer. Get ahead of the casting notice by targeting specific plays and theatre companies on the Up-To-Date Actor and receive notifications of upcoming productions as soon as they are announced.

WHAT DID YOU SAY?!?!?! 🦻

I'm not crazy, those commercials are SOOO LOUD, right?!?!? Finally, I know I'm not the only one who thinks so! You're watching a quiet drama and you have to crank up the volume to understand the dialogue, then BAM, cut to commercial and the walls are shaking with the details of the latest McDonald's $5 meal combo. The FCC Media Bureau is taking a fresh look at its rules regarding the nearly decade-old Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, by soliciting feedback from consumers. Created to "eliminate any systematic difference between the loudness of commercials and the loudness of the programming they accompany," the CALM Act’s rules have been revisited only once since their initial institution, to adopt minor changes. Now, the FCC is seeking comment, so please for the love of my eardrums and sanity, drop a line and tell them to turn down the volume!

Scandal in the Air
HFPA

While the Oscars seem to be moving in the right direction the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) is drowning in the murk of their continued controversies in the aftermath of this year's Golden Globe Awards. The HFPA's Diversity and Inclusion Advisor, Dr. Shaun Harper, has walked away from the Golden Globes organization one and a half months after being hired. Countless PR companies are also jumping ship and severing ties with the HFPA over the group’s lack of Black members and no real strategy to become more inclusive.

This announcement comes on the heels of another controversy on the same day. Member, and former 8-term HFPA president, Phil Berk has been expelled for sending HFPA members a racist email. In the email, Berk quoted an article that called the Black Lives Matter organization a "racist hate movement" and claiming that Black Lives Matter's Patrisse Cullors was a "self-proclaimed trained Marxist."

Scott Rudin

Speaking of monsters... Scott Rudin continues his rapid fall from grace. After announcing that he was stepping away from all of his Broadway productions last week, Rudin is removing himself from his film and streaming projects and is resigning from the Broadway League.

In the wake of the Rudin harassment and bullying allegations, The Producers Guild of America is expanding its Independent Production Safety Initiative to include anti-bullying trainings "with the goal of eliminating workplace violence and aggression."

If you're out of the loop on just how heinous Scott Rudin is, here is a recent article from New York Magazine's Vulture with accounts and personal experiences by Rudin's former assistants over the past 20 years.

Diversity / Inclusion

Cast diversity in films "skyrocketed" last year, according to the latest inclusion report from UCLA. "People of color and women made tremendous strides among film leads since the last report, cementing 2020 as a watershed moment for diversity,” the study says. "For the first time, both groups nearly reached proportionate representation among film leads." And while 2020 was certainly Hollywood’s most atypical year in terms of how films were released, the report concluded that it "was the industry’s most successful year on the diversity front." UCLA's "2021 Hollywood Diversity Report," co-authored by sociologists Darnell Hunt and Ana-Christina Ramón, is the latest indication that Hollywood is in the midst of a diversity sea change. The report also looked at diversity within the ranks of film writers and directors, and here too found significant gains for women and minorities.

An informational hearing on "Unseen Latinas in Hollywood" was held Friday in Sacramento to explore the barriers Latinas face in the film and TV industry. "Despite Latinas making up 20% of the population in California, we continue to be excluded, erased, and misrepresented in movies and on TV," said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), chairwoman of the Select Committee on Latina Inequities, who hosted the hearing.

SAG-AFTRA has launched a Spanish-language version of its website as part of a broader organizational effort to increase engagement with its thousands of Spanish-speaking members. The new website is also designed to support the union’s organizing efforts in the growing Spanish-language market. The website will include the content of its English counterpart as well as articles and resources that are specific to the needs and work of the Spanish-language industry.

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