The TradeVine – Entertainment Trade Article Highlights – February 8th, 2019
Welcome to the TradeVine whose purpose is to encourage the entertainment industry to read their trades: Variety, Backstage, Hollywood Reporter, etc. Enjoy learning about your industry.
Each Friday, The TradeVine seeks out a few of the informative trade articles you may have missed. Please visit the trade, itself, for the entire article.
Backstage – How to Choose the Right Headshots (Not Just the Ones You Like), By Nogen Beck
One of the secret, silent, and least talked about killers of a sound approach to actor marketing is bad image selection. I can’t tell you how often I speak with actors before a headshot session, flesh out and write down their goals, and consult on wardrobe to sell those goals, only to get the post-shoot retouch order and see a whole lot of none of those goals showcased in their selections.
Your photographer can take the best, most targeted shots in the world but it’s all for nothing if you don’t choose them!
Why does this happen? It’s simple: Unlike brands who have creative directors to aid in image selection, actors are often their own creative director. While a brand’s creative director makes decisions on something not attached to her identity, an actor is faced with images of himself, meaning his psychology is able to negatively influence his choices. Read Entire Artice Here
The Hollywood Reporter – Will ‘Star Wars IX’ Title Reveal Any Key Details? By Graeme McMillan
Fans are awaiting the name, but history shows titles are less important than they may seem.
If the last week has revealed anything, it’s that Star Wars fandom is becoming increasingly impatient when it comes to the official release of the title for this December’s Star Wars: Episode IX. Similar to the anticipation for the title for Avengers 4, social media feeds have been becoming pre-occupied with the perhaps-imminent announcement, with almost every message from anyone connected to the movie — from Anthony Daniels to arch-fan troll Mark Hamill — being dissected for potential hints and clues about the title’s reveal.
However, such fervor may be slightly unnecessary.
In a recent tweet, Lucasfilm Story Group member Pablo Hidalgo told a fan “If [Episode IX] has a title, I don’t know it.” Assuming that Hidalgo was being honest — which seems like a fair assumption, if only because he has nothing to gain from lying about this — it suggests that perhaps the urgency felt about, and focus placed upon, the title of the movie by fans is somewhat misplaced. If Episode IX’s title gave some earthshattering hint about the future of the franchise, surely it would be something that the division of the company responsible for keeping canon consistent would be aware of? Read Entire Artice Here
Variety – Film Review: ‘What Men Want’, By Owen Gleiberman
In a gender-flipped remake, Taraji P. Henson is a sports agent who reads her male coworkers’ minds and discovers that (surprise) they’re still jerks.
Mel Gibson was still a beloved Hollywood megastar when he co-starred with Helen Hunt in “What Women Want” (2000). The film had all the depth of a “Bewitched” episode, but it was still a funny and likable piece of mind-reading screwball-kitsch fizziness. (It became one of Gibson’s biggest hits, grossing $182 million.) The lady-killer hero, who gets conked on the head and begins to read women’s thoughts, had a whole lot to absorb about what tough, sharp, enlightened human beings women really are. That seemed a perfect lesson for Mel Gibson, even before he fell from grace, to be learning.
Flipping the genders of this idea feels like a natural, except for one small detail. In “What Men Want,” Taraji P. Henson, all sparkly vivacity and italicized ambition, plays an Atlanta sports agent who’s the only woman in an office full of second-rate Jerry-Maguire-meets-Ari-Gold high-roller wannabes. The premise of “What Women Want” was that women are smarter and better than men believe; the premise of “What Men Want” is that men are even more in thrall to their egos and appetites than women fear. As stereotypes go, I don’t find that one objectionable (or, for the most part, untrue), but it holds a distinct disadvantage as comedy. Read Entire Artice Here
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