Videoage International - 2020: A Year in Review

14 January 2021 V I D E O A G E Andrew Cuomo’s Show Up For Emmy T he governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo, should be nominated for three Emmys for his daily COVID-19 TV updates — a Daytime Emmy, a Primetime Emmy, and an International Emmy, considering that 59 million viewers from all over the world tuned in for the reports, which even became a regular feature on Sky News in the U.K. For their value, I’d also put Cuomo’s updates on a Cannes Lions Award nomination list for the best Public Service Announcement (PSA) category. Cuomo’s worldwide audience included a good number of viewers who watched through digital media, with 4.7 million watchers on Facebook tuning in for this new brand of “must-see TV.” For comparison, the highest rated U.S. TV program in 2020 was Sunday Night Football on NBC, which garnered 20.9 million viewers. The Daytime Emmy nomination would be for his more than 110+ live half-hour morning broadcasts. The Primetime Emmy would be for his daily evening and nightly news clippings. And the International Emmy would be for his series’ popularity throughout the world. Cuomo began his 11:30 a.m. “Andrew Cuomo Show” as it was called on the East Coast, onMarch 2, 2020, and ended the “Coffee with Cuomo,” as it was called on the West Coast (where it aired at 8:30 a.m.), on June 19, after 96 straight days. Each episode contained several different elements. Sure, they featured daily dramas — with the report on the number of deaths (which at one point reached 800 per day), the number of hospitalizations (with a peak of 30,000 in April), and the number of patients in Intensive Care Units (which reached 10,000 in April). But there were also humorous segments, especially when Cuomo video-connected with his younger brother Chris (an anchorman at CNN) for the sole purpose of teasing each other. “You know I’m our mother’s favorite son,” they would say to each other. There were even times when their mother Matilda made video appearances from her residence in Florida. Other purely comedicmoments includedwhen Cuomo described his parents’ spaghetti-and- meatballs family meals, or his interactions with his three daughters (“I wish I had some control over them!”), all of whom spent the lockdown at his house, and who tended to criticize his “lack of communication skills.” There were also some bittersweet comments, like his closing lines during the Friday updates, “By the way, tomorrow is Saturday,” he would say, indicating how easy it was to lose all sense of time during the lockdown. In his final briefing, Cuomo reported that it “took 42 days to climb the mountain, and 69 days to get down,” and that on that day in New York State, which has a population of 19.5 million, 17 people had died from COVID-19 and 1,358 people were hospitalized, with 278 patients in the ICU. And, even though most of the State was on phase two out of the lockdown, he still reminded viewers, “Tomorrow is Saturday.” A One-of-a-Kind Dubbing Academy D ubbing expert Jacques Barreau reported on the status of an often neglected sector: Regardless of the country or the language, the coming years are going to be great for dubbing actors, but very challenging for localization companies as they will be fighting over the existing actors’ pool, which is too small to sustain the growing need for dubbing. The work will be concentrated in the main dubbing cities, and if actors live outside of these cities, theywill have very few chances to get work. So on one hand, we have a small pool of existing actors who cannot handle the ever-growing work, and on the other hand we have lots of potential actors who won’t be considered candidates as they are not trained and are located far from the dubbing studios. The idea is to create a new, decentralized pool of talent to avoid adding to this limited group of actors that can work only in the dubbing cities. This is where our AI enters the scene. AI will not replace actors, but will make them better by improving their performances and limiting potential mistakes, as well as helping actors concentrate on their performances. This academy is for anyone who wants to be part of a new group of actors who will have learned their future job with new tools and new processes. After their graduation, students will be ready to record anywhere, in studios or at home, with a technology called Studio.NEXT. It will also be easier for the actors recording at home to rehearse as long as they want without the time constraints of the studio. The rythmo band (a term used in the dubbing business when the text is scrolling from right to left on a screen and the actor reads the text in sync with the picture) will make it easier for the actors to record in sync as it will free them from lip sync constraints, helping them to concentrate solely on their performances. Very often, the engineers have to make a choice between a perfect sync, an OK rendition, or a not- so-great lip sync in a great performance. Vatican-inspired TVoD I ts official name is VatiVision, but it’s starting to be known as the “Vatican’s answer to Netflix.” It offers movies, TV series, and documentaries, all inspired by the Christian faith. Topics are intended for an international audience and are available in Italian and English at the moment, but will soon be available in other languages such as Spanish and Portuguese. The service began on June 8, 2020. VatiVision was born from a joint venture between production company Officina della Comunicazione (based in the city of Bergamo in the Lombardy region) and Vetrya (in the Umbria region), which specializes in digital platforms and cloud computing. Financial support was provided by the Italian UBI Bank. The Vatican has no stake in the venture. Michael F. Goldman: 1939-2020 M ichael F. Goldman served as AFM’s first CFO and was elected chairman twice: 1984-1985 and 1991-1993. The idea of AFM was first articulated in the summerof 1980duringa luncheonattendedby five Los Angeles-based independent film distribution executives who got together to “discuss the high costs, the bribes, and corruption at the Cannes Film Festival.” Subsequently, an extended group met up in the boardroom of a Bank of America in Beverly Hills, and the American Film Market was formed the following October. Goldman was born in Manila, Philippines in 1939. He lived there until 1942 and again from 1945 through 1950. His family then moved to Tokyo, Japan where they stayed until 1953. His father, who was born in Shanghai, then moved the family to Beverly Hills. He attended UCLA, graduating from the business school in 1962 with a specialty in marketing and accounting. Goldman’s film company, Manson, was a family business started by his father, Edmund, after he left Columbia Pictures in 1953. Michael joinedManson in 1962 and took over its operations in 1975. After 1975, Manson ceased to distribute films in the U.S., and focused solely on international licensing. In the early 1980s, Manson Distributing Corporation became Manson International. In late 1986, Manson International was purchased byWinstar, Inc. Today, theManson library resides within and is distributed by MGM. In Other News June 2: Greg Phillips started Rainmaker Content, a new distribution company in London. June 4: Pathe feature Eiffel restarted filming in Paris, France. June 15: Joel Denton was appointed acting president of Red Arrow in London. June 16: Ananey Studios resumed production in Israel. June 17: U.S. daytime soap The Bold and The Beautiful restarted production at Television City Studios in Los Angeles. June 25: Alex Marin left Sony Pictures Television and started his ownMiami, Florida-based content distribution company, Media Advisors. June 26: Nippon Television appointed Hiroyuki Fukuda as board director and COO. June 2020 Review