Tuesday News: digital publishing, Star Wars competition, writing research, and Memorial Day v. Veterans Day
Publishing Newsdigital publishing / Disney / Harlequin / Memorial Day / research / Star Wars / US history / Veterans Day9 Comments
Confessions of a newspaper publishing exec: ‘We’ve screwed up by pursuing scale’ – I think almost every Q&A from this interview could begin with “Dear Twitter,” because the platform has become so twisted by the pursuit of NEW USERS and MORE CLICKS. For the sake of NEW USERS and MORE CLICKS. Given the incredible opportunities for direct democracy and the natural relevance that flows from ongoing immediacy, the drive to measure success as if the news were nothing more than advertising seems especially obnoxious.
What are the repercussions [of pursing scale for its own sake]?
The natural result is that the same value is applied to a person who clicks one of your links on Twitter or wherever, as to a person who returns regularly to the site and regards themselves as a reader. With people consuming more content via Google AMP carousel or via Facebook’s Instant Articles, they’re clicking on links based on someone else sharing them, not because they’re engaged with that publisher’s product. And that’s all part of the “as many people as possible” pursuit. – Digiday
DISNEY RUMORED TO BE IN PANIC MODE OVER STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE – You’ve got to love it when the Star Wars franchise is in heated competition with itself to the point where Disney is actively editing the new film. You know this isn’t going to go well.
According to an insider: “Gareth’s work on the first ‘Godzilla’ [which came out in 2014] shows he can handle a big studio blockbuster. But ‘Rogue One’ has fallen short of what J.J. Abrams did with ‘Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens.’ So Disney has ordered reshoots.”
It’s said Edwards prefers to direct his movies without much influence, but “Disney won’t take a back seat, and is demanding changes, as the movie isn’t testing well.” – Cosmic Book News
Frenchtown novelist did arson research for 1st Harlequin book – An antidote to the ignorant Economist article from yesterday, this profile of Danica Winters focuses on the research she conducted to ensure that her fire inspector protagonist was realistically portrayed. What really caught my attention, though, was this passage on how Winters is attempting to break the societal pattern of blaming women in abusive relationships:
However, the bulk of the criticism of “Smoke and Ashes,” which she said has sold some 21,000 copies in the last month, has focused on the character’s morals: Heather begins a relationship while still married, albeit to an AWOL abusive husband. One magazine article called Heather “morally ambiguous,” a trait that’s usually a point of pride in literary fiction. . . .
More important to Winters were the issues of domestic abuse, which she said she’s experienced in other periods of her life.
“As a female, if you’re raised in a situation where you are abused and believe you have less value than a man, less self-worth, and told you’re fat and ugly and stupid and never going to do anything with your life, then you look for a relationship later in life that is similar to what you already know,” she said.
It typically falls upon the victim to break the cycle, a point she’d rather raise the character’s marriage.
“Why aren’t we celebrating her strength, and her ability to finally see the situation for what it is?” she said. – Missoulian
Why Memorial Day is different from Veterans Day – So apparently people confuse Memorial Day and Veterans Day? Is that because US history is so poorly remembered? I do like this Mental Floss list of 10 Memorial Day facts, though, especially this one:
7. VIETNAM VETS GO WHOLE HOG
On Memorial Day weekend in 1988, 2,500 motorcyclists rode into Washington, D.C. for the first Rolling Thunder rally to draw attention to Vietnam War soldiers still missing in action or prisoners of war. By 2002, the ride had swelled to 300,000 bikers, many of them veterans. There may have been a half-million participants in 2005, in what organizers bluntly call “a demonstration—not a parade.”
A national veterans rights group, Rolling Thunder takes its name from the B-52 carpet-bombing runs during the war in Vietnam. – Mental Floss and Washington Post
Studio meddling is rarely a good thing.
Movie reshoots are a normal part of making movies. There are a lot of things that would prompt them such as continuity/cinematography/audio errors, for example. It’s true that, sometimes there are additional scenes filmed after principal photography ends because of initial negative impressions. However, it is not a clear indicator of how good or bad a movie really is.
The alarmist tone of this rumor is incredibly obnoxious.
Much of the reason Twitter keeps tinkering with its platform is that it wants to be a one-stop shop for its users the way Facebook has become. Facebook is dictating the terms of what goes into its news feed and every media company is trying to adjust to that. Twitter doesn’t care where the content comes from any more than FB does, it just wants to be sure that people land on it and spend time. Once it went public it was committed to expanding its user base as much as it could and they all know that. It’s worth remembering that it wasn’t at all clear, back when FB rolled out its mobile platforms, that they would succeed. That they have with such success has reshaped the environment.
I hope, for the sake of all of us who have loved using Twitter, that it finds a way to increase its user base without ruining what made it so great in the first place. But people come to it for different reasons and I’m just not sure they can. It’s not just about alienating old users, it’s about having the platform transform into something more while keeping its original functions and I don’t know how that will come about. If it does, then advertisers and media will flock to them the way they do to FB now.
I hope Maz is correct about Rogue One. The trailer looked interesting and the concept has potential.
Well, Gizmodo has more details on the re-shoots, and the studio definitely seems to have some issues with the film: http://io9.gizmodo.com/more-details-have-been-revealed-about-those-rogue-one-r-1779744810
@Robin and @Janine That TPTB want to replicate the success they had with The Force Awakens is a given. However, this subtext of Rogue One being ~terrible~ due to additional scenes/shooting is kinda annoying. To wit: there hasn’t been any ither kind of negative press regarding anything or anyone else connected to this project. No one’s been fired and replaced, for example.
The one thing *I* would be more worried about would be how to market this movie. A lot of people are confused/don’t know that this movie is set after Episodes 1-3 and before Episodes 4-7. (My Star Wars needed is medium-sized).
Based on what I’ve seen and heard, many people think this is a sequel to last year’s TFA.
@Maz:
Ugh, gorram Autocorrect!! I meant ” my Star Wars nerdery”.
From the studio’s reported desire to lighten the film, it sounds like this may be a branding issue for them. I was actually drawn to the trailer’s dark vibe but after the success of The Force Awakens, they’ve got a huge audience to satisfy. If some people find it doesn’t meet their expectations, they might not come back for Episode VIII.
@Janine:
Episode VIII is already filming and, even if Rogue One is a complete bomb at the box office (always a possibility), I can’t think of a reason why the studio wouldn’t release it.
If anything, the movie that’s got the biggest hurdles to jump is Rogue One: there’s the (ridiculous) backlash against it because it’s got a female lead, it’s not a direct sequel to TFA, and the majority of the cast aren’t famous actors (Diego Luna, Felicity Jones, Alan Tudyk, for example).
FWIW, I too liked the darker vibe. At least we’ve only got a little less than 6 months before we get to see it.