The Independent Alliance consortium of ten UK publishers including Faber and Faber, Atlantic Books, Canongate, Icon Books, Profile Books, Short Books, Quercus, Serpent's Tail and Granta, in association with the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is to launch a one-day festival 'to celebrate and explore independence across the creative industries in Britain'.
The festival is scheduled to take place on 6th June. Among the featured publishers will be Faber's Stephen Page and Atlantic's Ravi Mirchandani who will take part in seminars along with other leaders in the creative industries including Laurence Bell, founder of Domino Records and well-known writers including Alan Bennett and Edna O'Brien.
Friday, 19 April 2013
Thursday, 18 April 2013
Pinewood Studios in Joint Venture with China's Seven Stars
Buckinghamshire-based Pinewood Shepperton plc, one of the UK's biggest film studios, announced on 17 April, 2013 that the Group has entered into a 50-50 Joint Venture Agreement with China's Seven Stars Media Limited.
Pinewood is a leading provider of services to the global film and television industry while Seven Stars is one of China's leading private media groups providing content creation, distribution, media services and events.
Song Lin, which is a literal translation in Mandarin from the name 'Pinewood', will be the name of the new venture which is to assess a number of business proposals in the growing market for entertainment in China. The Chinese entertainment and media market is said to be worth $137,458 million and is predicted to grow to £192,518 million by 2016. The Chinese market for filmed entertainment is worth £4,478 million and is expected to almost double by 2016.
The aims of the new venture are to provide co-production opportunities for film and television producers; create film and television diploma courses which will be delivered by UK educational institutions in Beijing, Tianjin and other Chinese cities; to develop production financing for Chinese film and television productions and to create a series of film-themed entertainment venues and other projects in Shanghai, Beijing and Wuhan.
For comments by PM David Cameron and managements of the two partners see http://www.pinewoodgroup.com/about-us/news/pinewood-signs-chinese-joint-venture-agreement
Pinewood is a leading provider of services to the global film and television industry while Seven Stars is one of China's leading private media groups providing content creation, distribution, media services and events.
Song Lin, which is a literal translation in Mandarin from the name 'Pinewood', will be the name of the new venture which is to assess a number of business proposals in the growing market for entertainment in China. The Chinese entertainment and media market is said to be worth $137,458 million and is predicted to grow to £192,518 million by 2016. The Chinese market for filmed entertainment is worth £4,478 million and is expected to almost double by 2016.
The aims of the new venture are to provide co-production opportunities for film and television producers; create film and television diploma courses which will be delivered by UK educational institutions in Beijing, Tianjin and other Chinese cities; to develop production financing for Chinese film and television productions and to create a series of film-themed entertainment venues and other projects in Shanghai, Beijing and Wuhan.
For comments by PM David Cameron and managements of the two partners see http://www.pinewoodgroup.com/about-us/news/pinewood-signs-chinese-joint-venture-agreement
UK Digital Theatre and CinemaLive Link Up
Digital Theatre, a company which makes filmed theatre productions available for download, will screen some of its recordings in cinemas around the UK in partnership with film producers CinemaLive. The first series of screenings will take place in September 2013.
Titles are yet to be announced but will initially focus on commercial West End productions some of which will be newly recorded and some drawn from Digital Theatre's archive which includes shows like Much Ado about Nothing starring David Tennat and Catherine Tate and David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker in Arthur Miller's modern American classic All my Sons.
Digital Theatre, founded in 2009 by Robert Delamere and Tom Shaw, now hosts productions from the UK's largest classical and modern repertory theatres including the Royal Court, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe and the Almeida. It has launched an ipad app and hosts the Routledge Performance Archive of audio-visual material.
UK Theatre has had an increasingly regular presence in cinemas since the launch of National Theatre Live in 2009. NT Live will broadcast its first West End production The Audience starring Helen Mirren in June 2013.
Graham McLaren's productionn of Great Expectations demonstrated the commercial potential of the theatre-cinema link by taking £80,000 at the box office for its live-broadcast around the UK of its opening night. The Digital Theatre and CinemaLive will give audiences a chance to catch up on past theatrical productions they may have missed.
Titles are yet to be announced but will initially focus on commercial West End productions some of which will be newly recorded and some drawn from Digital Theatre's archive which includes shows like Much Ado about Nothing starring David Tennat and Catherine Tate and David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker in Arthur Miller's modern American classic All my Sons.
Digital Theatre, founded in 2009 by Robert Delamere and Tom Shaw, now hosts productions from the UK's largest classical and modern repertory theatres including the Royal Court, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe and the Almeida. It has launched an ipad app and hosts the Routledge Performance Archive of audio-visual material.
UK Theatre has had an increasingly regular presence in cinemas since the launch of National Theatre Live in 2009. NT Live will broadcast its first West End production The Audience starring Helen Mirren in June 2013.
Graham McLaren's productionn of Great Expectations demonstrated the commercial potential of the theatre-cinema link by taking £80,000 at the box office for its live-broadcast around the UK of its opening night. The Digital Theatre and CinemaLive will give audiences a chance to catch up on past theatrical productions they may have missed.
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
London Book Fair - new generation ebooks
At th week's London Book Fair London publisher Faber trailed a 'fully immersive' version of John Buchan's classic adventure 'The Thirty-Nine Steps', a bespoke e-book exploring how the digital format can be used to rethink conventional narrative.
Originally published in 1915 as a serial in Blackwood's magazine The Thirty-Nine Steps introduced the first action hero, Richard Hannay. It has already been adapted several times for film and television so is no stranger to new technology.
This interactive visual version was produced as a result of the publisher teaming up with two software publishers and a developer, collectively known as The Story Mechanics to create a 'fully playable, fully immersive product' which it is believed will break new ground in digital reading.
The app, borrowing techniques from gaming, will include classic stop-frame animation and be accompanied by original silent film music which will allow readers to 'unlock dozens of achievements and items to collect on their reading journey and explore hundreds of hand-painted digital environments and context from 1910s Britain.'
Also embracing innovative ideas in presenting fiction Iain Pears, author of The Dream of Scipio and An Instance of the Fingerpost is publishing his new book Arcadia in digital form, also with Faber, in the autumn with a conventional print version to follow next year. Pears' novel is inspired by quantum physics and written in 'nodes' mapped on to a graph constructed after consultation with an Oxford Professor of Mathematics. Arcadia is not an interactive novel. The aim is to create an infinite number of ways in which the story can be read. One result of the new format according to the author is to get the story beyond the constraints of time and get rid of causality. The novel is being constructed in partnership with a software developer and digital designer and will be rewritten for the print version. The team are excited that this is not simply a digital 'bolt-on' to a print novel but conceived from the outset in a digital format. Does this spell the end for the solo novelist?
Originally published in 1915 as a serial in Blackwood's magazine The Thirty-Nine Steps introduced the first action hero, Richard Hannay. It has already been adapted several times for film and television so is no stranger to new technology.
This interactive visual version was produced as a result of the publisher teaming up with two software publishers and a developer, collectively known as The Story Mechanics to create a 'fully playable, fully immersive product' which it is believed will break new ground in digital reading.
The app, borrowing techniques from gaming, will include classic stop-frame animation and be accompanied by original silent film music which will allow readers to 'unlock dozens of achievements and items to collect on their reading journey and explore hundreds of hand-painted digital environments and context from 1910s Britain.'
Also embracing innovative ideas in presenting fiction Iain Pears, author of The Dream of Scipio and An Instance of the Fingerpost is publishing his new book Arcadia in digital form, also with Faber, in the autumn with a conventional print version to follow next year. Pears' novel is inspired by quantum physics and written in 'nodes' mapped on to a graph constructed after consultation with an Oxford Professor of Mathematics. Arcadia is not an interactive novel. The aim is to create an infinite number of ways in which the story can be read. One result of the new format according to the author is to get the story beyond the constraints of time and get rid of causality. The novel is being constructed in partnership with a software developer and digital designer and will be rewritten for the print version. The team are excited that this is not simply a digital 'bolt-on' to a print novel but conceived from the outset in a digital format. Does this spell the end for the solo novelist?
FLIP Festival coming to UK
Liz Calder, former editorial director of London publisher Bloomsbury, is launching a UK version of Festa Literaria Internacional de Paraty (FLIP), the Brazil-based literary and cultural festival she co-founded with her husband, former Bookseller editor, Louis Baum, which they have tun for the past ten years.
The UK version to be called FLIPSIDE will take place 4th - 6rh October, 2013 and be held at the arts and concert venue at Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, Suffolk.
The programme, which is still in the planning stages, will be announced in May. It will feature a number of Brazilian writers, artists and musicians alongside UK-based authors and will include a tribute to the poet and lyricist Vinicius de Moraes and composer Antonio Carlos Jobim who together created Bossa Nova.
To find out more visit the Brazil collective stand at the London Book Fair (Y405) or www.flipsidefestival.co.uk
The UK version to be called FLIPSIDE will take place 4th - 6rh October, 2013 and be held at the arts and concert venue at Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, Suffolk.
The programme, which is still in the planning stages, will be announced in May. It will feature a number of Brazilian writers, artists and musicians alongside UK-based authors and will include a tribute to the poet and lyricist Vinicius de Moraes and composer Antonio Carlos Jobim who together created Bossa Nova.
To find out more visit the Brazil collective stand at the London Book Fair (Y405) or www.flipsidefestival.co.uk
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
2013 Pulitzer Prize Winners
The Associatd Press reports the 2013 Pulitzer Prize winners today, April 16, 2013, awarded for all types of journalism from international news to feature photo-journalism. The winners are as follows:
PUBLIC SERVICE
The Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Florida for its investigation of off-duty police officers who were recklessly speeding and endangering lives which led to the suspension and dismissal of officers involved and significant policy changes at several South Florida police agencies. Editor Howard Saltz is reported as saying this type of journalism made the community safer and made certain that people behaved in a more appropriate and just way which he concluded is really what journalism is all about.
BREAKING NEWS REPORTING
The Denver Post Staff won the award for the Post's coverage of the mass shooting at a movie theatre in suburban Aurora last summer which left 12 people dead. News Director Kevin Dale commented that the newspaper would rather have won for a less tragic story. The award citation noted that the paper had used Twitter, Facebook, video and written reports to capture the story and provide context indicating the greater breadth and use of wider media that is part of newspaper reporting today.
The New York Times scooped several awards including:
David Bairstow and Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab for Investigative Reporting; The New York Times Staff for Explanatory Reporting; David Barboza for International Reporting and John Branch for Feature Writing.
The prize for Local Reporting was won by Brad Shrade, Jeremy Olsen, Glen Howatt of the Star Tribune, Minneapolis which also scooped the prize for Steve Sack for Editorial Cartooning.
The prizes for National Reporting went to InsideClimate News, Commentary to Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, Critism to Philip Kennicott of The Washington Post and Editorial Writing to Tim Nickens and Daniel Ruth of the Tampa Bay Times.
Prizes for photo-journalism went to Rodrigo Abd, Manu Brabo, Narciso Contreras, Khalil Hamra and Muhammed Muheisen of the Associated Press for Breaking News Photography and to freelance photographer Javier Manzano for Feature photography.
The Pulizter Prizes for the Arts were awarded in the following categories:
FICTION: Adam Johnson for 'The Orphan Master's Son'
DRAMA: Ayad Akhtar's 'Disgraced'
BIOGRAPHY: Tom Reiss for 'The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal and the real Count of Monte Cristo
POETRY: Sharon Olds for 'Stag's Leap'
GENERAL NON-FICTION: Gilbert King for 'Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys and the Dawn of a New America'
MUSIC: Caroline Shaw for 'Partita for 8 Voices'
Congratulations to all the winners.
PUBLIC SERVICE
The Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Florida for its investigation of off-duty police officers who were recklessly speeding and endangering lives which led to the suspension and dismissal of officers involved and significant policy changes at several South Florida police agencies. Editor Howard Saltz is reported as saying this type of journalism made the community safer and made certain that people behaved in a more appropriate and just way which he concluded is really what journalism is all about.
BREAKING NEWS REPORTING
The Denver Post Staff won the award for the Post's coverage of the mass shooting at a movie theatre in suburban Aurora last summer which left 12 people dead. News Director Kevin Dale commented that the newspaper would rather have won for a less tragic story. The award citation noted that the paper had used Twitter, Facebook, video and written reports to capture the story and provide context indicating the greater breadth and use of wider media that is part of newspaper reporting today.
The New York Times scooped several awards including:
David Bairstow and Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab for Investigative Reporting; The New York Times Staff for Explanatory Reporting; David Barboza for International Reporting and John Branch for Feature Writing.
The prize for Local Reporting was won by Brad Shrade, Jeremy Olsen, Glen Howatt of the Star Tribune, Minneapolis which also scooped the prize for Steve Sack for Editorial Cartooning.
The prizes for National Reporting went to InsideClimate News, Commentary to Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, Critism to Philip Kennicott of The Washington Post and Editorial Writing to Tim Nickens and Daniel Ruth of the Tampa Bay Times.
Prizes for photo-journalism went to Rodrigo Abd, Manu Brabo, Narciso Contreras, Khalil Hamra and Muhammed Muheisen of the Associated Press for Breaking News Photography and to freelance photographer Javier Manzano for Feature photography.
The Pulizter Prizes for the Arts were awarded in the following categories:
FICTION: Adam Johnson for 'The Orphan Master's Son'
DRAMA: Ayad Akhtar's 'Disgraced'
BIOGRAPHY: Tom Reiss for 'The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal and the real Count of Monte Cristo
POETRY: Sharon Olds for 'Stag's Leap'
GENERAL NON-FICTION: Gilbert King for 'Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys and the Dawn of a New America'
MUSIC: Caroline Shaw for 'Partita for 8 Voices'
Congratulations to all the winners.
Monday, 15 April 2013
Raindance Film Festival - Early Bird Discount
Its the last 3 days to get an earlybird discount for London's Oscar qualifying (for short films) Raindance Film Festival later this year.
Raindance are themselves venturing into feature film production with Love, Honour and Obey which they are crowd-funding via http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/love-honour-and-obey for details and an opportunity to contribute if you wish.
They are currently running two training series.
Finding Time and Confidence is a script coach series led by Jurgen Wolff being held today, Monday April 15 6:30 - 9:00 pm at the Raindance Film Centre, 10 Craven Street, London WC2N 5BE. Just time to make that one. The cost is £48:00. Call 0207 930 3412 to book.
Anatomy of a Story with John Truby is on June 15 - 17th 9:30 am - 6:00 p.m. The venue which will be in Central London is to be confirmed. The cost is £420. Call 0207 930 3412 to book.
Raindance are themselves venturing into feature film production with Love, Honour and Obey which they are crowd-funding via http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/love-honour-and-obey for details and an opportunity to contribute if you wish.
They are currently running two training series.
Finding Time and Confidence is a script coach series led by Jurgen Wolff being held today, Monday April 15 6:30 - 9:00 pm at the Raindance Film Centre, 10 Craven Street, London WC2N 5BE. Just time to make that one. The cost is £48:00. Call 0207 930 3412 to book.
Anatomy of a Story with John Truby is on June 15 - 17th 9:30 am - 6:00 p.m. The venue which will be in Central London is to be confirmed. The cost is £420. Call 0207 930 3412 to book.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)