hollywood

60Frames to give content creators online boost

Got a great idea for a TV show but don't want to deal with going through the traditional Hollywood studio system vetting and production process?

Or maybe you don't even want your show on TV at all, what with the Internet offering so many different distribution opportunities?

Then a Los Angeles start-up called 60Frames Entertainment may well be your ticket to the director's chair.

The company, founded with $3.5 million from investors United Talent Agency (UTA) and Spot Runner, is geared toward providing a wide variety of content creators with the financing and resources they need … Read more

Report: Apple close to winning over studios

Apparently, Apple is willing to make concessions to the film industry to bolster iTunes' lackluster movie offerings.

BusinessWeek is reporting that Apple is close to signing distribution deals with most of the top movie studios that would give Apple access to newly released films.

The Financial Times reported last month that Apple has already signed an agreement with Twentieth Century Fox. BusinessWeek now says the company is nearing deals with Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, and Lionsgate. The magazine suggested that some of the deals may be announced at the Macworld conference, which starts January 14.

While Apple has dominated music, … Read more

TorrentSpy begins weeding out copyright content

TorrentSpy, the torrent-file search engine accused by Hollywood of aiding copyright violators, plans to remove links from its search results to pirated content using a new filtering system.

FileRights is an automated filtering system created by some of TorrentSpy's founders, including Justin Bunnell, according to a statement released Monday. The technology uses "hash" values to automatically remove links to infringing works from search engines that subscribe to the service.

The move comes as TorrentSpy fights a lawsuit brought against it last year by the major film studios. TorrentSpy suffered a legal blow earlier this month when the … Read more

Chatting 'bout an IM generation

LOS ANGELES--Power is in the hands of the IM set.

A buzzword here at the OnHollywood conference this week is the "IM generation"--a young age group that has adopted instant messaging and texting more than any other form of digital communication.

Tony Perkins, founder of OnHollywood and organizer of the AlwaysOn Network, launched the event on Tuesday night by saying that the IM generation is driving innovation.

Perkins' statement was followed by a Thursday discussion led, in part, by a group of young panelists. It focused on how teenagers tend to not look at their gadgets and … Read more

Trendio: A stock market for words and ideas

Trendio is a new prediction site that blends the feel of a stock market with that of fantasy football. Instead of using actual companies, Trendio places value on people or words as they show up around news sites on the Internet. Trendio users can purchase word stock using Trendillions (the site's fake currency) and manage their stocks within portfolios. Your goal as a Trendio user is to create a portfolio with words that interest you (so you can track their popularity) or that you simply think will do well on the market (so you can earn fake money).

Trendio … Read more

Give your lighting a Hollywood closeup

Whenever we'd stuck around long enough to see a movie's credits in the past, we always wondered what a "gaffer" was. Finally, thanks to research for Crave (and Wikipedia), we know now that the term refers to the lighting guru on the set.

The "Gaffer's Bounce Lamp," according to Hammacher Schlemmer, was designed by gaffer extraordinaire Edward Cohen, whose works include Spider-Man 2 and A Beautiful Mind. It apparently owes its name to the process of bouncing a 20-watt floodlight onto a "flexible, sanded polycarbonate reflector that directs a soft, diffuse light.&… Read more