Awards
Return of the Red Carpet: Golden Globes Set on NBC for 2023
NBC, Dick Clark Productions, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) have all come together to announce the return of the Golden Globes for its 80th anniversary. The ceremony has been set for Tuesday,January 10. This date, which may be seen as a peculiar spot for an awards show, was chosen so the event does not interfere with the airing of both NFL and NCAA games on the days prior. While exact details of the deal have yet to be revealed,NBC has only signed a one-year agreement, meaning the Golden Globes will be up for grabs in the coming years. While the return of the Globes has been hinted at for the past several months, it was never certain, given the controversy surrounding the HFPA and its lack of internal diversity. To correct this, the association added 103 members, including international voters. According to HFPA, the voting pool “is now 52% female, 51.5% racially and ethnically diverse, with 19.5% Latinx, 12% Asian, 10% Black and 10% Middle Eastern.”Helen Hoehne, President of the HFPA, created a complete list of the non-profit's reforms back in August, and in addition to the new members, the association implemented a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion program, appointed a new Chief Diversity Officer, and is requiring all members to attend sexual harassment and DEI trainings. The last Golden Globes ceremony, which took place in February of 2021, was delayed due to the pandemic and the telecast received abysmal ratings with only 6.9 million viewers.In comparison, the January 2020 ceremony that took place right before the start of the pandemic clocked in at18.3 million viewers. Will the associations’ reforms be enough to win back viewers? We will find out at the beginning of next year.
Film Festivals
Bigger and Better Than Ever: Tokyo Film Festival Is Back In Full Force
For the first time in three years, Tokyo is rolling out the red carpet for its international film festival. The festival is set to host 100 overseas guests, which is a big jump from the past two years that were extremely limited thanks to Japan’s tight travel restrictions. A current travel restriction which limits the number of inbound visitors is expected to loosen by the start of the festival, with a parliamentary meeting currently underway. TIFF will also make a big splash this year due to the return of the Kurosawa Akira Award, which acknowledges a filmmaker’s contributions to the global cinema landscape. The award, which was previously given to filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and Yamada Yoji, has not been a part of the festival for the past 14 years. Screenings and film nominations are also eclipsing last year's numbers. The 2022 Tokyo Film Festival is set to have 110 screenings, selected from a total of 1,700 entries, which have all been relocated to Hibiya-Yurakucho-Ginza-Marunouchi area. In the competition segment of the festival, Asia and the Middle-East are the most represented, with 10 out of the 15 films having been produced or co-produced in one of the two regions. In addition, the festival will host a gala that plans to celebrate 16 big international releases. Up-and-coming filmmakers will be recognized in the festival's Asian Future category, and media from the anime genre will also be celebrated throughout the event.
DEI
Diversity in Documentaries: More Females Are Behind Non-Fiction Cameras
The latest report conducted by Dr. Martha Lauzen, Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, found that documentaries entered in U.S. film festivals employed a much higher percentage of women compared to fictional feature films in behind-the-scenes roles. The top jobs considered in the report include writers, directors, producers, executive producers, cinematographers, and editors. The report found that 43% of these roles in documentaries were made up of women, while only 34% of these roles were women on narrative projects. In addition, when directly comparing every job, there was a higher percentage of women working in documentaries for each category. When looking just at independent films entered in the U.S. festival circuit, women made up 39% of all top credited behind-the-camera roles, which is up an entire percentage point from last year. Therefore, the report’s data suggests that documentaries and independent projects tend to offer more opportunities for women, as opposed to higher-budget films. Overall, the film role that is made up of the most females is that of the producer (with 44% women), and the role that had the lowest number of women represented is the composer (with only 17% of composers being female). The study looked at a total of 9,960 credited roles on 730 films entered in the 2022-2023 festivals, including AFI Fest, Slamdance, Sundance, SXSW, and many more.
Television
Don’t Mess with the FCC: Broadcasters Fined Millions Over Children’s TV Ads
Several broadcasters are in trouble for violating rules that limit advertising on television meant for children. According to a statement made by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), three TV stations must pay a collective $3 million as they “apparently willfully and repeatedly violated rules limiting commercial matter in children's programming.” The rule set by the FCC, also called the ‘KidVid Mandate,’ makes it so that children's programming can only contain a total of 10.5 minutes of commercials per hour during the weekend and 12 minutes per hour on weekdays. And if an ad features an animated character from a popular program, the entire program can be considered a commercial. This is why broadcasters are currently in hot water. During the show Team Hot Wheels, stations aired an ad for a Hot Wheels toy garage, which turns the entire program into a commercial. The same mistake was made back in November 2020 by Sinclair, who owns 85 stations, but at that time, the broadcaster voluntarily reported themselves to the FCC over the violation. Some broadcasters blame Sinclair for this error, as commercials were embedded into the programming content they received. But even so, the FCC holds each broadcaster liable for the content they air. Other stations defended themselves by acknowledging that this programming was just a mistake, but the agency said in response that “the Commission has repeatedly rejected inadvertence as a basis for excusing violations of the children’s television commercial limits.”
Film
Movie Marketing: How Big Movie Studios Are Harnessing the Power of Gen Z
Entertainment marketers were in the spotlight this week at the Variety TikTok Culture Catalysts Dinner as they discussed how movie studios can speak to younger audiences through popular creators. A recent marketing campaign that was able to successfully reach a Gen Z audience was for Top Gun: Maverick. Danielle De Palma, EVP of Global Marketing for the studio behind the film, notes that reaching a younger audience was a unique challenge as they would have no nostalgic connection to this long-awaited movie sequel. But they were able to overcome this obstacle by listening, learning what younger audiences wanted out of the film, and centering their marketing around those moments of interest. The film went on to have its own TikTok hashtag, #TopGunMode, which received a total of 13 billion views on the platform. For Netflix, their marketers have a common mantra when it comes to creating content for Gen Z. They say, “You’ve got to sprinkle a little chaos on it.” But even so, they always provide a unique angle or point of view in every TikTok. With this approach, they can produce fun videos that speak directly to desirable audiences on the platform, as many of them are already eager to engage with Netflix media. Studios are also focused on the influencers, or the entertainment focused TikTok creators, by partnering with them on content and even including them on the red-carpet of movie premiers. Several creators also participated in the Culture Catalysts Dinner, taking the stage to advise brands on how to connect with influencers and leverage them to build excitement around upcoming movies.
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