The TradeVine – Entertainment Trade Article Highlights March 17th
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 – 38 Famous Actors’ Audition Prep Tricks, by Stephanie Pitera
Preparing for an audition can be a daunting task. Luckily, some of the busiest actors in the industry spoke with Backstage this year about what they do to prepare for an audition. If you’re stuck at where to start, or are simply looking for some new tips, check out what these 38 actors (from Kathy Bates to Gaby Hoffmann) had to say!
Kathy Bates
“I was never good at [auditions]. Ever. Ever. I would study the script and try to get ideas and I guess finally, I don’t know when it was, I just stopped trying too hard and I tried to be natural and that’s when it got better. I’m really glad I don’t have to audition anymore, although I will say this: I think even actors who are well known should work with the director and find out if it’s a good fit.”
Christopher Meloni
“It took me a long time to find the right combination. It used to be I’d study it and memorize it to the best of my ability, but I got a sense of staleness from that. I did it laissez-faire, and that just kind of fucked me because I needed a better structure. It’s more of a feel. It goes back to your basic training: Break it down, understand the beats and intentions, study it, and then leave it at the door. It gives you a sense of your mission and intention, your emotional timbre, but it doesn’t set you adrift and it doesn’t calcify you into being overly dogmatic.” Read Entire Artice Here
The Hollywood Reporter – Gavin Polone: Why Women Really Make Less Money in Hollywood (and How to Fight Back) by Gavin Polone
A Day Without a Woman? It’s all nice, writes a top producer and former agent, as top female executives reveal their frustrations and why real change comes in the art of the deal and the confidence to jump around. Says one, “Women are individually their own worst advocates.”
I know from reading the trade websites that many in Hollywood observed A Day Without a Woman on March 8 — though I did see several females at the studio and network I visited that day. The talent agencies certainly treated it as a special event, which makes sense, since all of them have women at the pinnacle of their management committees. (That’s true, right? I didn’t dream it, did I?) In any case, this honoring of females caused me to think about how ridiculous it is that in 2017, women, or any other group of people, should be paid less for the same job — save for guys with comb-overs, since they absolutely should get less.
While the result of this inequity is simple to understand, the sources are not as clear. This isn’t like the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, where the cause of the problem is straightforward: that the film Academy’s electorate is mostly Caucasian, old and rich. Certainly, with regard to the topic of equal pay for women, the old, rich, white guy power structure could play a part, but contract negotiations largely are about perceived leverage, and female actors have more leverage now than ever, as do women who write, produce and work as executives. And still, their pay is not equal to that of men. While many headlines decry the situation, I haven’t read any articles that explain why this problem persists nor any offering a solution — probably because nobody fully understands why this dilemma exists in the first place. Read Entire Artice Here
Variety – “Aquaman’ Release Date Pushed Back to Christmas 2018, by Brent Lang
“Aquaman” won’t surface until Christmas of 2018, Warner Bros. said on Thursday.
The comic book adaptation is swimming from an Oct. 5 release date to Dec. 21 of that year. It will open on the day that “Avatar 2” was originally slated to debut. The James Cameron-directed sequel has been delayed multiple times as the exacting filmmaker tinkers with his latest cinematic excursion into Pandora. Jason Momoa, best known for his work as Khal Drogo in the HBO series “Game of Thrones,” stars in “Aquaman” as the titular merman. James Wan (“The Conjuring”) directs.
The studio has a lot riding on “Aquaman.” Warner Bros. has invested heavily in crafting a cinematic universe of DC Comics characters to rival the one established by Marvel, with mixed success. Both “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad” were commercial hits, but they were bashed by critics, signalling that quality control will be important going forward. Aquaman had a cameo in “Batman v Superman” and has a larger role in next fall’s “Justice League,” a film about a super-team of spandex-rocking heroes that features the Dark Knight, Man of Steel, and Wonder Woman. In its new slot, “Aquaman” will square off against Sony’s animated Spider-Man movie. Read Entire Artice Here
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