Film

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — You might think of YouTube as the site for viral videos and your cousin’s birthday clips, but the giant of the Web video world is on a mission to change that perception, YouTube spokesperson Chris Dale told Beet.TV in an interview at the corporate parent Google’s headquarters on Tuesday.

Big trial gets underway on Friday (4.24) in San Francisco about the DVD-ripping program from RealNetworks called RealDVD.  Hollywood is not too pleased with the $30 program which allows you to rip and save unlimited number of DVD's to a PC.

Showtime will debut the full-length version of Edie Falco's new series Nurse Jackie, online in June before its first showing on the premium cable service.

Hollywood is still “dawdling” over DRM, film rights and downloadable media, according to a Business Week story by Steven Wildstrom.  In June, I interviewed Sony Pictures CTO Mitch Singer about plans to make motion pictures more easily shared between devices.  We chatted on the Sony lot in Culver City.  I have republished the interview today. […]

CULVER CITY, CA — The success of digital entertainment will result from true interoperability between consumer devices, says Mitch Singer, Chief Technology Officer of Sony Pictures.Earlier this month I visited him on on the Sony lot.  He is among a group of entertainment executives and academics who are working to create new standards in downloadable […]

Paramount Pictures is doing some very creative marketing of motion pictures in social networks with an application called VooZoo from Hollywood-based FanRocket. At Digital Hollywood last week, we spoke with Danny Kastner, CEO of FanRocket.  He gives a pretty lively demo here. Paramount’s Derek Broes explains the value of FanRocket to CNET News.com’s Greg Sandoval […]

Albert Maysles, the great documentary filmmaker who co-directed the 1970 Rolling Stones film Gimme Shelter, shot the behind the scenes footage for Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed Rolling Stones performance film "Shine a Light." Last month in Manhattan, we caught up with the celebrated documentarian to get his approach to filmmaking.  He uses a video camera now.  […]

"Don’t be concerned with a host, narration or music, just get close to what’s going on," saysAlbert Maysles a giant in the world of documentary filmmaking. His career has spanned 50 years.  Some know him for his documentary of the Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter" and others for his "Salesman."  His work has had an immense […]

Claude Lelouch, the celebrated French film director, who is best known for his 1966 Academy Award-winning/crossover hit "A Man and a Woman," tells Beet.TV he makes films in much the same way "an amateur would" — he writes, shoots and edits it all himself. For legions of independent film makers, the personal vision and execution […]

The annual New York French film festival got underway in New York last night and we had the extraordinary good fortune to catch up with the great French film director Claude Lelouch, best known for his 1966 Academy Award-winning "A Man and A Woman."  We found a short clip from the film on YouTube and […]

Cable companies have invested billions in creating an effective video on demand (VOD) but studios are balking at making much content available, at least right now,  writes Randall Stross in today’s New York Times: According to Craig Moffett, vice president and senior analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, cable’s video-on-demand is well positioned, technically […]