This post continues the ongoing “From Nottingham and Beyond” series, with contributions from faculty and alumni of the University of Nottingham’s Department of Culture, Film and Media. This week’s contributor, Nick Camfield, completed his PhD in the department in 2014.

In perhaps the most striking sequence in Bill Morrison’s Decasia: The State of Decay (2002), a boxer launches heavy cross-blows at a punching bag obscured by decomposing film stock. As the nitrate warps and bubbles, the boxer’s punches seem defiant. As Morrison recounted, “I wasn’t just looking for instances of decayed film, [but] instances where the image [was] fighting off the inexorability of its demise.”[1]

Still from Decasia.

Rocky Marciano featured in 3-D Rarities.

Nitrate film was highly combustible and subject to serious chemical deterioration, and Morrison did have opportunities to adulterate his decaying elements further. Decasia nevertheless serves as an anti-Bazinian statement on mortality and a powerful call for film preservation—an unending process of curatorship, working with nitrate and triacetate bases, and with analog and digital formats. As R. M. Hayes notes, 3-D filmmaking dates almost to cinema’s inception.[2] While preservation of the 2D cinematic archive is considered a valuable endeavor, the stereoscopic archive has received comparatively little attention. The mass production of 3-D televisions and home video players has opened spaces for 3-D film spectatorship and restoration, however, and for appropriations of older stereoscopic texts through expressions of nostalgia and subcultural capital.

As I argue in my PhD thesis, 3-D television emerged as a mass-produced technology as part of a cycle that crossed media platforms and bolstered development trends in each.[3] At the same time, discourses on safety and convenience and accusations of gimmickry informed 3-D television’s situation in the media marketplace.[4] Such complaints were rooted in longstanding claims about the unviability of 3-D media. If, as Keith Johnston maintains, 3-D has reached a “final moment,” in which historical discourses have arrested the technology’s potential,[5] one might observe that 3-D television’s fate was determined long before its introduction. Assertions that 3-D television has failed absolutely are widespread. Television reviewers stress that 3-D functionality is of little interest, yet they are obliged to discuss this aspect of performance. Satellite broadcasters have abandoned 3-D production, due to negligible viewing figures and to make room for ultra-high definition (UHD) platforms. A technology that manufacturers heralded as “revolutionary” has quickly become a sideshow attraction.

Rejections of stereoscopic technology have emboldened 3-D media fans, however, and current aesthetic practices have further encouraged devotees. According to Barbara Klinger, 21^st-century 3-D filmmakers have eschewed “pop-out” effects to preserve Hollywood’s invisible styling.[6] Keith Johnston likewise suggests that conservative aesthetic choices limited 3-D television’s appeal.[7] Filmmakers such as James Cameron have worked to distinguish 21^st-century 3-D filmmaking from that of earlier periods. In breaking the fourth wall, the argument goes, 3-D “pop-out” disrupts narrative continuity. To address this difficulty, it is claimed, “pop-out” should be minimized and depth of field accentuated. Such assertions offer fans of older 3-D films something to rail against: namely, alleged corporate behemoths steamrolling their visceral pleasures. For aficionados, current aesthetic practices stand in contradistinction to a “golden age” of stereoscopic filmmaking slowly being revived on home video.

Though recent Hollywood blockbusters are well represented on 3-D Blu-ray, older titles have until very recently been neglected. Over the past two years, both conglomerate and independent Blu-ray distributors have issued dual-frame–format releases of older 3-D movies. Since none of these titles were re-released theatrically, home-video reissue represents the only opportunity to view them in anything approximating their cinematic form.[8] Moreover, without the advent of 3-D television, such restorations would not have been undertaken, likely abandoning many of these cultural artifacts to decay. In order of 3-D Blu-ray release, one can now (or shortly) access The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Dial M for Murder (1954), Amityville 3-D (1983), House of Wax (1953), The Bubble (1966), Dragonfly Squadron (1954), Inferno 3-D (1953), Kiss Me Kate (1953), Comin’ at Ya! (1981, forthcoming), The Mask (1961, forthcoming), and Gog (1954, forthcoming). Nonetheless, this list represents a small fraction of historical 3-D productions with still retrievable negatives.

Perhaps the most diligently restored stereoscopic release to date is 3-D Rarities, a collection of 22 shorts and novelties held by the 3-D Film Archive and distributed on Blu-ray by Flicker Alley. The films date from 1922 to 1962 and include documentary footage of New York City, anti–nuclear testing film Doom Town (1953), a Pennsylvania Railroad promotion, animated short The Adventures of Sam Space (1953), Casper the Friendly Ghost short Boo Moon (1954), and a Francis Ford Coppola–directed burlesque sequence from 1962.[9] Flicker Alley’s release prompted subcultural expression among enthusiasts, who dismiss recent Hollywood 3-D filmmaking in favor of a lost and unapologetically in-your-face aesthetic. Claims that Hollywood has domesticated 3-D allow fans of historical stereoscopic texts to position themselves in opposition to “mainstream” sensibilities and production techniques, as evidenced by user reviews of Flicker Alley’s release.

Fans derive clear pleasures from an older stereoscopic aesthetic, while decrying 21st- century Hollywood practices. As one reviewer enthused, “This is the first real example of what 3-D was to me when I grew up. Short and to the pointy!” Others remarked that “Unlike modern 3-D films, vintage 3-D is incredibly strong and will push your 3-D television to its full potential”; “Don’t expect today’s Hollywood films to come close to the level of dimensional enjoyment you will experience here”; and “Contemporary 3-D movies just don’t take advantage of the medium the way these classics did.” Such observations pervade commentary on 3-D Rarities, along with calls for access to a wider catalog of historical 3-D texts. In the absence of such representation, there is comfort in the knowledge that a limited archive of stereoscopic titles is currently both rejuvenated and enjoyed.

Notes

[1] Flicker Alley’s Blu-ray 3-D Rarities includes similar training footage of Rocky Marciano, who, through use of negative parallax, seems to hit a punching bag through the screen plane. This footage has been carefully stored and digitally restored, unlike the heavily degraded stock Morrison sought out for Decasia. Links to trailers including excerpts from both sequences are included above.

[2] R. M. Hayes, 3-D Movies: A History and Filmography of Stereoscopic Cinema (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1989), p. 3.

[3] Nicholas Camfield, 3DTV Year One: Force, Resistance, and Media Technology (PhD Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 2014), pp. 47-94.

[4] Ibid., pp. 95-220.

[5] Keith Johnston, “Pop-out Footballers, Pop Concerts and Popular Films: The Past, Present, and Future of 3D Television,” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 19.4 (February 2013): 438-455.

[6] Barbara Klinger, “Three-Dimensional Cinema: The New Normal,” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 19.4 (February 2013): 423-431.

[7] Johnston, op cit.

[8] Not every production listed was originally exhibited using Polaroid (dual-frame) 3-D, with some presented in anaglyph (red/green) formats. All 3-D Blu-ray titles referenced above are presented in superior dual-frame formats, however.

[9] Flicker Alley’s Blu-ray release was preceded by a special screening of 3-D Rarities at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

1. YouTube is ramping up its investment in branded channels to make itself more like TV. There’s a danger, though, in alienating the amateurs that YouTube initially capitalized on to distinguish it from TV. More favorably, YouTube is trying to help out nonprofit campaigns, and it has tweaked its search algorithm to better favor videos that viewers truly engage with.

2. Some big numbers in the news this past fortnight: There are now six billion cell phones worldwide (though that still leaves one billion without one), and there are one billion smartphones out there. Internet advertising reached $17 billion for the first half of 2012. American mobile devices ate up 1.1 trillion megabytes of data across 12 months, and US high speed broadband connections are up 76% over last year. The biggest number in the news? A French woman received a mobile phone bill for $15 quadrillion.

3. Amazon is going to take advantage of all the consumer data it gathers by working more closely with advertisers and ad agencies to place ads on Amazon sites. The Do Not Track movement is trying to limit what consumer data advertisers can obtain from our web browsers, much to advertisers’ chagrin. Adding more chagrin is a study highlighting how frequently mobile ad clicks are merely accidental.

4. The newspaper audience is shrinking — or maybe it’s not — but either way, Britain’s Guardian is the latest to look at ending its print edition. In the US, the Chicago Tribune is shifting to a paywall strategy online, which sounds like a bad move if you buy the idea that print outlets should be following what The Atlantic is doing. Newspapers in Brazil don’t like what Google is doing, and they’re now going to have to deal with the New York Times encroaching on their turf in an effort to expand its global audience.

5. A new study finds that young people commonly copy and share music among family and friends, but it was also determined that file-sharers buy more music than non-file-sharers, lending some food for thought to the music industry, which will see peer-to-peer users warned about illegal sharing activities soon. Unfortunately, the musicians’ cut of digital music income remains paltry, but Pandora insists the money is there.

6. As the compact disc turns 30, Neil Young is pushing for a new digital format, one superior in sound quality to mp3s. Meanwhile, music streaming marches onward, with Xbox now joining the fray and the BBC starting its own service, while Spotify looks to expand in new areas, such as in Japan and on smart TVs.

7. 20^th Century Fox professes to be very excited about new technologies, while one of the most pervasive of Hollywood’s recent technological efforts, 3D, is supposedly on the decline (again). Given recent studio turmoil, it’s unclear who exactly will lead Hollywood through this next stage of technological production, but it’s seeming likely there won’t be as many unpaid interns working for them as before.

8. The new documentary nomination rules that Michael Moore helped the Academy usher in for this year’s Oscars have apparently only caused new problems, so now Moore is proposing new solutions, including getting rid of the old solutions. Much of this revolves around issues of distribution, and the story behind Detropia illustrates how challenging distribution of docs has gotten today.

9. The gaming company Zynga is experiencing all sorts of turmoil, from declining stock to rumors of employee revolts to lawsuits against an ex-employee being portrayed as a threat to current employees. But at least there’s FarmVille 2, now with 50 million players. Of course, it’s no Angry Birds, now with 200 million players.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: Community Art, Ratings Takes, Scrambling Ban Eliminated, Cord Cutting Boxes, Connie Britton’s Hair, New Moonves Contract, New Local Ratings System, Real PBS Issues, DVR Boosts, Variety Sold, House of Cards Scheduled.

1. The Cannes Film Festival lineup is out, with heavy representation of English-language films, and the jury is also set. Meanwhile, the Tribeca Film Festival has wrapped up, with jury award and audience award winners that include a film whose Cuban actors are now seeking asylum in Miami. But Robert Levin says the big impact from Tribeca will come from its new model of digital distribution via the Tribeca Online Film Festival. And Toronto wonders, can there be too many film festivals?

2. In film production tax credit news, a British tax credit system is credited with offering a big boost to indie films, California has passed a 5-year extension, and we wait to see if Ohio deems its tax credit scheme worth renewing. We’ll also wait to see if there’s anything to the suspicion that Hollywood studios bribed the Chinese to allow them access to the Chinese film market (a deal mentioned in a previous WAYM). The SEC should also investigate to see if Russians were bribed to go see John Carter.

3. More directors are clamoring to get their films on IMAX screens, while Martin Scorsese has fallen hard for 3D, but Peter Jackson is one-upping them all by going to 48 frames per second, and even though it apparently looks crappy, Jackson says there’s no stopping it now. Some think recent indie films haven’t looked crappy enough.

4. Howard Stern’s lawsuit against Sirius XM has been dismissed, but this may not be the last we hear of it. The British will get to hear more live music, thanks to new rules that will streamline the process for small venues to book live acts. And we could soon be hearing Spotify sound just like Pandora.

5. Nintendo is struggling, so much so that they’re making video game sales overall look bad, and it might even be time for Nintendo to sell, but Nintendo thinks the Wii U and especially the 3DS will save it, with a new digital distribution strategy also offering hope for growth.

6. YouTube’s video service has turned seven years old, and for its birthday, Germany wants to give it a massive music royalty bill and demand that it better police copyrighted content, though this could mostly boil down to a negotiating tactic. A group of Hollywood studios failed in their attempt to hold an Australian internet provider responsible for piracy, but Voltage Pictures just won’t quit until they chase down every last Hurt Locker pirate. And it remains to be seen if Hollywood will go after a 92-year-old shipping bootleg DVDs to American soldiers overseas.

7. Facebook has had a drop in ad revenue this year for the first time, but it apparently doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme. After all, Facebook is nearing one billion users, over half of whom visit daily, and makes about $1.21 from each user per quarter. And yet, with 58% of its user base female, Facebook somehow hasn’t found a woman to appoint to its board of directors.

8. Apple is killing it in China with iPhone sales, and, in a fascinating story, apparently iPads can only be made in China, not due to cheap labor but to rare earth elements, which China has almost exclusive control over. Meanwhile, Microsoft is looking like the anti-Apple in the smartphone market and the consumer technology arena, but it hopes it can be all China-like in controlling Windows apps on iPads.

9. Is a Facebook “like” protected free speech? Apparently not. Is a tweet yours to own? Apparently not. Is a Tumblr with ads still a Tumblr? We’ll find out starting May 2. Will we get the internet and be able to tweet about a Tumblr we like once we’re on Mars? Maybe.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: TV & Diversity, Media Use, Political Posting Imposed, Web’s Impact on TV, Hulu Partner Out, NEA Giveth & Taketh Away, David Simon’s Blog, More News Corp Trouble, Future of TV is Broadband, Assessing CNN, The CW Online Impact, Sunday DVR Slam, Girls & Race, Girls Coverage, Hulu’s Growth.

1. With bookstores dying, chains and independents alike, many have great expectations for digitization. Thankfully, libraries might still matter in such a world, as indicated by Amazon making Kindle books available to libraries, even allowing you to make saveable margin notes and highlights. Amazon also has a Netflix-style e-book rental service in the works.

2. Amazon was also in the news for awful warehouse conditions, its Appstore quietly going international, and being targeted by new Internet retailer tax legislation in California. Cloud computing services are about to make the latter even more complicated. Also likely to get even more complicated is the Net Neutrality issue, which might see new rules go into effect on November 20, but those will likely be challenged in court. Meanwhile, we can all look at this cool infographic and lament that Eastern Europe and a lot of other countries are leaving the US in the dust when it comes to internet speeds.

3. You’ve heard all about Netflix’s rough times lately, but you may not have seen this handy chart of the company’s diving stock value or heard about its headquarters lawsuit. A possible future threat looms in the form of the studio-backed cloud service UltraViolet, which Wal-Mart might get on board with, while the indie world is watching SnagFilms and Prescreen with interest.

4. Oscar season might have more serious dramas in the mix, thanks especially to Sony, and it will also have some new publicity party rules, though those might mean nothing in the end. Serious drama of the non-fictional sort continues to play out in Iran, where the co-director of Jafar Panhi’s This is Not a Film has been arrested. The British apparently prefer serious drama on screen to real life, as a BFI report found that the British public considers cinema to be more worthy of their attention than world news.

5. DreamWorks might expand production into China, while Paramount is expanding in its own back yard. Stephen Spielberg regrets expanding digital effects for an earlier release of E.T. and says he won’t do it again, but you can plan to see (or not see) an expansive version of Top Gun in 3D, while James Cameron doesn’t think just anybody should be able to make films in 3D.

6. Nielsen released a comprehensive report on social media use, including a person-shaped infographic; with a mere silhouette stance, it clearly signifies hipster. (Bonus international social media use infographic!) It was only a little over five years that us hipsters started using Twitter, though it was called Twttr then (slogan: “If you have a cell and you can txt, you’ll never be bored again…E V E R!”). And now any hipster who wants to can join Google+; nearly 50 million already have (though according to my feed, only about five are regularly posting).

7. In Japan, the Tokyo Game Show was packed, but the Microsoft Kinect booth wasn’t. In the US, video game makers are enjoying big tax breaks, and GameFly professes not to be worried by Netflix’s move into video game distribution. And online, YouTube is a frequent destination for gamers, and online gamers might help to cure AIDS.

8. Spotify is now open for business to all Americans, but it’s also dealing with significant dissension and defection from indie labels over low royalty payments. Spotify argues it’s being fair, and you can compare for yourself via this handy primer on how much money a band earns from various outlets. The streaming competition is about to get even thicker; unfortunately, users seem to prefer ownership to streaming.

9. This headline deserves its own entry: “Actually, there really isn’t that much porn on the internet.”

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors (@N4TVM) post from the past two weeks: Lost History, Facebook and Social TV, Making the Daily Show, Blockbuster Streaming, Farewell to AMC, Louis on Louie, The V-Word, CBS Likes Reverse Comp, Top Chef Transmedia, Downton Breaks, Netflix & Qwikster, TV Changers, SpongeBob’s Effects, TV Everywhere Campaign. 

1. The NY Times says Hollywood’s summer was bad; the LA Times says Hollywood’s summer was strong. Resolving this East Coast-West Coast feud is David Poland, who rips the NY Times for ridiculous spin. The Midwest’s Kristin Thompson argues that 3D had a rough summer, but drive-ins are still somehow holding on, plus now so-called microcinemas are coming on strong.

2. Lionsgate is finally free of its stalker, Carl Icahn, but who knows where it goes next. The Wrap analyzes where Revolution Studios went, and more European producers are increasingly saying they don’t need Hollywood to get where they want to go, yet many are going to Toronto rather than Venice in order to get American attention. Venice was good enough for the graphic Shame (full frontal Michael Fassbender!) to grab American attention: it’s been picked up by Fox Searchlight. (And Fassbender won the top acting award for his, um, performance.)

3. Wal-Mart claims it’s happy to work in tandem with Netflix, not against it, with its Vudu video service, but it earned a strategic victory in defeat from a lawsuit. Netflix might have to step up its lobbying spending even more to keep its edge, and it’s also seeing what it can do in Latin America, taking on another piracy hotbed. The Weinstein Co. is now embarking on a video-on-demand effort, and Kevin Smith’s Red State-on-demand experiment continues and will be augmented by a one-night simulcast theatrical screening.

4. Music sales in 2011 are up thanks to digital sales, and Hypebot’s Natalie Cheng says even stores that sell physical music media are reflecting the impact of digital. The National Association of Recording Merchandisers (yes, that’s NARM, Nate Fisher fans) is fighting to find its place in the digital/cloud world. Justin Timberlake is fighting to give MySpace a place in the future of music, and Facebook may get involved in the music game soon too, while it was clarified this week that the iTunes Match cloud service will not offer streaming.

5. Bitmob’s Rus McLaughlin says digital distribution is the new console war, though that doesn’t mean the console wars are over, as we might see a new Playstation by 2013. Business Insider gets us chartastically up to speed on the state of the video game business, while another Bitmob writer laments how much gaming costs the consumer these days. He might be interested in the new WiFi-free PSP being developed for budget-strapped youth.

6. Apple fought Flash and apparently has won, but the iPhone is still fighting to catch up to Android for the biggest share among the 40% of mobile phone users who have smartphones (and here I thought I was the only one whose phone only makes phone calls). Apple’s also fighting against Samsung all over the world and against counterfeits all over China, where a fake Viagra expert could come in handy. And Apple’s opening real stores in Hong Kong and London; the latter will literally block the sun.

7. Craziness at AOL this week. Craziness at Yahoo this week. Hey, maybe AOL and Yahoo should get together! Bad idea? Or not even an idea?

8. Google just turned 13 years old, and the company started its teen years by buying a shiny new company, Zagat. This could add to Yelp’s and Groupon’s already existing troubles plus raise concerns about search neutrality.  Google is also ridding itself of some excess baggage in shutting down a group of products. Meanwhile, Amazon is working on a significant website redesign that seems to emphasize digital goods over physical products, and the company cut a deal with California on sales taxes.

9. Tumblr has reached 10 billion posts, Twitter has 100 million active users and just had an $800 million funding round, Facebook is on track for a $3 billion year (if not quite the year originally projected), and Google+ is well short of millions and billions of anything.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors (@N4TVM) post from the past two weeks: Men in Crisis, Sorkin & HBO, Decline of Female Writers, Soap Oral History, NFL Overexposure, Reality TV Lives, Nielsen Numbers, Soap Stars Sign, TV Cloud, BitTorrent TV, Global Streaming Increases, Starz Leaves Netflix, Warner as TV Factory, DMA Rankings, State of AMC, British Sitcom Appeal, AMC Talk, Arts Losses, Google & TV, Hulu’s Performance.

2. Daniel Engber tackles the “Is the 3-D boom over?” question, and Daniel Frankel tackles the “Is the expensive movie ticket boom over?” question; Patrick Goldstein questions Hollywood’s business model, and David Poland questions Patrick Goldstein; Alex Wilhelm questions why Hollywood is going after advertisers on pirate websites, and Chris Thilk says there’s no question Hollywood should go with location check-in services.

3. indieWIRE profiles indie distributors, Cinematical highlights a theatrical opportunity for filmmakers who haven’t found a distributor yet, Anne Thompson wishes Edgar Wright had gone with an indie distributor rather than Universal for Scott Pilgrim, and Anthony Kaufman wonders what the future of mid-level indie film distribution will hold. Last-minute bonus link: Bill Plympton discusses self-distribution.

4. Paul McGuinness and Robin Millar offer ideas for how to save the music industry, Jac Holzman believes the internet can’t be the enemy, and Tim Anderson says the loss of music retail outlets has been a big blow. But nothing better illustrates the challenge of figuring out how to monetize music today than a wicked diagram of the flow of rights and royalties in the industry.

5. Entertainment Weekly is embracing digital initiatives, while USA Today is stumbling toward them, and many news apps are falling short. Paul Carr considers the possibility there could be ads in our e-books, and Newsweek infographically compares books and e-books.

6. The 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System is 25 years old this year. Jeremy Signor looks back on those wonderful early days of Duck Hunt and Mario, and Tim Latshaw remembers how exciting gaming was as a kid when you could barely afford it. Kids today will be able to look back 25 years from now on the early days of App TV and digital distribution, playing games online, and playing games for college credit.

7. Facebook was in the news a lot this fortnight, for engineers leaving, a new location service, trumping advertisers, possible censorship, trying to trademark ‘face’, and, oh yeah, that movie. And if you love infographics and Facebook, you’ll be thrilled by this.

8. There’s a new Gawker and a new Digg, plus David (of post-dental fame) has a new gig. We’re still waiting on the new Chatroulette (and Erick Schonfeld worked overtime on the puns to get at what went wrong with the old one), and while the web may be dead, so is everything else.

9. The controversial Park 51 community center project in lower Manhattan has a Twitter account; Joe Pompeo introduces us to the man behind the tweets. If you’d like to track real-time Twitter discussions of such controversies, or search them back for months, you’ve now got Google Realtime to help you out. Twitter can also act as a support group, a social payment system, and a cat rescuer.

10. Some good News for TV Majors links from the past two weeks: One Million More Households, Levitan & Hulu, Emmy Uncertainty, Online TV News, TV For Rent, Indecency Status, Sorry Cable, TV Alternatives Everywhere, British Media Habits, Apple & Google Compete.

2. Social media now occupies the top spot on the list of ways our time is wasted spent online, with Facebook overwhelmingly dominating the category and upstarts like Tumblr on the rise. This is affecting how we consume news, as well as how movie companies market films to us. But though it’s hard for my addicted self to imagine, 21% of Americans say they don’t use the internet at all.

3. The book is dead, the book is dead, long live the book, or at least the bookfuturist. If books die, where we will ever find the room to bury the 129,864,880 we have now?

4. The big internet news of this fortnight has been net neutrality & the Verizon-Google proposal; if you missed any of it, I suggest Wired’s links to ten media takes. Otherwise, there’s been good news for Internet Explorer, Skype, and Auto-Tune the News; bad news for Google Wave, AOL, and Digg; and unsettling news for Amazon Prime members and internet users who don’t realize how much their personal data can be tracked online. Finally, the news handed to Forbes bloggers is either good or bad depending on how they feel about basically being paid per hit.

5. Hollywood needn’t rush home to show its mid-summer report card to its parents, and even 3D earnings are starting to slow, while resistance to 3D within the industry is growing. Matt Zoller Seitz wants 3D filmmakers to push toward a more radical future. In light of the WSJ’s piece on the ever-rising clout of international distribution, one wonders how the overseas reception of 3D will factor in.

6. There were some good profiles this fortnight on the challenges and successes of indie cinema, from a look at the long journey of Colin Fitz to a five-part chronicle of the making of the Emmy-nominated documentary The Way We Get By to tips from the writer of The Disappearance of Alice Creed on how to write for a low budget. Meanwhile, Michael Moore is fighting for the future of single-screen theaters.

7. Blockbuster is partnering with Comcast to make its DVD-by-mail service more competitive with Netflix, and the company has also added video games to its delivery offerings. But Netflix is pushing its services more toward streaming than mailing, landing a significant deal with Epix that was an expensive but, says David Poland, necessary gamble. The rental delays that Netflix and Redbox agreed to earlier this summer are apparently paying off for DVD sales, but libraries might beat everybody out in the end.

8. American Idol has jumped to Universal for promotion and distribution of its music, which could be a big blow to previous partner Sony, and Universal has also made nice with MTV over digital advertising rates for streaming videos for Video Music Award voting, though all other streaming rights are still in dispute. Kazaa has made a lackluster return, and the summer tour scene has also been a dud, while HD radio is on the rise and public radio is standing strong.

9. The video games industry is in a state of disruption right now, such that it’s hard to pinpoint what the term “video game” covers anymore. But a group of gaming panelists still tried to predict the future of video games, and that future could include playing games with only our eyes. Looking back on the past, ESPN’s Outside the Lines offers an in-depth look at the development of the colossal “Madden NFL” game, the Entertainment Software Association has released a report detailing the economics of the video game industry from 2005-2009, and Nintendo says it’s sold 30 million Wiis since the unit’s 2006 launch.

10. My favorite News for TV Majors links from the past two weeks: Sportscenter Changes, Content Industry Doomed…Again, Satellite Up, Cable Down, Aca-Fan Dialogue, Tabloid News Middle Man, Cable & Network Ages, Miles & Reality TV, Questioning Ryan Murphy, Modern TV Online, CBS-Comcast Retrans Deal

1. Digg is trying to renew its influence with a redesign, Perez Hilton might be losing his influence, and the influence of blogs in general could be fading. Conversely, user-generated porn is on the rise (be on the lookout for the .xxx domain). And whether it’s used to access news, celebrity gossip, or porn, every citizen in Finland now has the legal right to broadband.

2. Google is gunning for Facebook, though tech insiders say its odds are long. Google is also still trying to make things work with China; MG Siegler is disappointed with Google’s concessions therein. Finally, Google Wave is now open to everyone (now that no one cares about it anymore), and the company is now enabling same-sex domestic partner health benefits for employees.

3. The FTC ordered Twitter to be more careful with user information and account security, which is ever more important, as the social media service is growing across the globe (heads up, Mark Zuckerberg). This growth is also reflected in the number of cool stories about Twitter this fortnight, including about the use of the hashtag, how tweeting is physiologically like falling in love, the importance of tweet cred, Twitter scholarship, Coke’s success with Twitter ads, and how Twitter has transformed NBA free agency.

4. There was a bunch of news about the dynamic between print and online this fortnight, most of which you heard plenty about (such as Rolling Stone sitting on the McChrystal story and seeing online outlets run with – or steal – it), but there were a few other stories that might have gone under your radar: newspapers’ share of revenue from digital advertising is declining; traditional media is having fun with Tumblrs; iPad magazines aren’t impressing yet and aren’t effectively social; YouTube trumped traditional media with the news that BP has been burning up turtles; and News Corp.’s paywall for online access to The Times is now up, a move Steve Blacker says Rolling Stone should take note of.

5. Pixar rules, Jonah Hex drools. The U.S. government cracks down, a file sharer battles back. A Fox marketing executive takes the heat for Knight and Day, but Cruise’s stardom likely fights on for another day. Screenwriters are struggling to find work, while Fox struggles to treat screenwriters like they matter.

6. indieWire offers a mid-year report on the specialty box office; the foreign-language Oscar winner The Secret in their Eyes could end up earning an impressive $7 million, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is headed toward becoming one of the 25 highest-grossing foreign-language films of all time. Restrepo and Cyrus also saw impressive earnings in recent weeks.

7. DVD’s days as a regular WAYM entry may be numbered: Blockbuster is being dropped from the NYSE due to its low share price (though the company has been granted more time by lenders to restructure its debt), Apple is backing streaming video online over Blu-ray, Ryan Lawler sees Hulu Plus as a DVD killer, and Will Richmond agrees with Jeffrey Katzenberg that DVD ownership may soon be a thing of the past.

8. Video games as a business: Console sales are down but games were up slightly in May, Microsoft says it’s going to wait and see on 3D, and UK tax relief for the games industry has been canceled. Video games as art: Tom Bissell argues that video games deserve more respect, Roger Ebert relented in his games-aren’t-art battle but gamer Gus Mastrapa was disappointed that he did, and Dennis Scimeca has a mixed response to a handful of video games presented as art exhibits.

9. Two researchers who argued back in 2004 that peer-to-peer file-sharing did not have a negative impact on recorded music sales have now reversed their position, while T Bone Burnett decries the fact that creators aren’t being rewarded financially for their music. A new company has cropped up to help boost that reward by licensing music for YouTube videos, and Peter Kafka says even though digital music distribution is a terrible business. Google is right to get into it.

10. Some good News for TV Majors links (and please note the new URL at the site – the “blogspot” is out): Pay TV Doing Fine, Network Summer, Captive Audiences, Daily Show & Women, Hulu Plus, Ratings Kick, Viacom Loses, Multi-Cam Dominance, Til Death Weirdness, Treme Finale, Franco Returns.

1. There were a number of stories this fortnight about online media and corporate commerce: Ann Taylor responded proactively to Facebook comments, Nike and Pepsi have hijacked World Cup marketing, product placement on blogs is increasing, Gatorade has a command center called Mission Control to oversee social media marketing, Disney/Pixar bought into Twitter trending, and Fox News has started a social media site (related: a Pew Center study finds a huge gap between social web news and traditional news news). Meanwhile, Henry Jenkins wants us to consider the difference between viral and spreadable, and even if they know the definitions, no one is really sure if Bros Icing Bros originated via viral or spreadable means.

2. A Nielsen study says about 22% of the world’s time online is consumed with social networking. We’ve also spent a lot of time looking up World Cup stuff, posting ruthless comments on articles anonymously, and checking out the latest I Can Has Cheezburger entries (seriously, tell me this isn’t awesome), while the Chinese apparently spend a lot of time just waiting for websites to load up. The Japanese are spending increasingly more time Twittering (the Japanese word for “tweet” translates back as “mumble,” which is perfect), but Iranians might not be Twittering as much as we would hope.

3. Hollywood is looking toward the international box office to help cover early summer losses, though the World Cup could slow things down a bit for non-Sex and the City-type films. Avatar is the gift that keeps on giving (though watch out for those glasses), while theaters are drawing more revenue from advertising. Great.

4. With even Pixar falling prey to it, many are lamenting Hollywood’s sequel and remake obsession: Anne Thompson, A.O. Scott, top producers, some guy in Austin who organized a protest. Claude Brodesser-Akner claims Hollywood is responding to some of the reboot bombs by seeking more originals, but Thompson is doubtful and points to the marketing challenge of originals like Knight and Day as a reason why Hollywood will continue turning to pre-sold ideas.

5. Carl Icahn appears even closer to Lions Gate Entertainment control thanks to Mark Cuban, but there’s still an ugly fight ahead. Cuban also suggests that studios should be buying up theater chains (like he’s done with Magnolia Pictures and Landmark Theaters), which sounds like a resurrection of classical-era Hollywood, but it’s for a digital-era reason: to exploit simultaneous VOD and theatrical releases. Of course, theater owners will certainly object, while R. Thomas Umstead says the viability of the day-and-date release is more complicated than many think, and the travails of the film Unthinkable show that piracy makes distribution plans even more complicated.

6. States are increasingly requiring filmmakers to showcase their regions in a favorable light if they want to receive valuable tax credits and subsidies (in response, the NYT had a little fun with the idea of cleaning up the cinematic image of New York), though this is probably more a requirement of independent productions, not major studio films. Similarly worried about negative depictions, conservative factions in Japan oppose the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove and have prevented domestic theatrical screenings of the film, but it will be streamed online via a Japanese video sharing site.

7. Redbox is going Blu-ray; Paramount is going rogue with Redbox, giving the service its new release DVDs right away rather than after a month window like most of the other studios, a decision that MG Siegler supports but David Poland says is a terrible mistake; and Netflix’s stock is going down thanks to a analyst’s claim that Hulu is a future threat, but Dan Rayburn says that projection is a terrible mistake.

8. The annual video game expo E3 took place last week: Bitmob fills us in on the best and worst of the major presentations – Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, EA, Konami, Ubisoft – Stephen C. Webster has more bests and worsts, and Dan Ackerman says hardware trumped software at the show, while Daniel Felt says no matter who won at E3, consumers lose in the end. Win or lose, consumers can look forward to the motion control war, more 3D games, and Rock Banding with the keytar.

9. Sasha Frere-Jones assesses some current online music listening options. One of them, the European subscription service Spotify, is being blocked from an American arrival by US labels due to its free music component. No matter the service, there’s a big challenge in convincing smartphone users to actually pay to listen to music on their handsets. Further, Jeremy Helligar points out that while singles are selling well, that’s not translating into album sales, which doesn’t bode well long-term for artists. Then there’s the web service that actually pays you for sharing music.

10. One thing you likely missed this fortnight was my birthday, but you can give me a belated gift by hitting one of my favorite News for TV Majors posts from the last two weeks: Gender in Televised Sport, Changing TV Culture, Cord Cutting Trends, ESPN Screens, TV Twitterers, DVR Boost, Nevins Profile, Actors Not Shows, Three Screen Report, Inside the Writers Room, The Genius of NewsRadio.

1. The Cannes Film Festival’s major award winners were just announced, with Apichatpong “Joe” Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives taking the Palme d’Or (and thus you can add Thailand to this chart of past Palme d’Or winners by country). Mike D’Angelo says Cannes got that right, a critics’ poll on the best and worst films had Uncle Boonme in second place, and indieWire’s film report card gave it a B+. Overall, the Cannes lineup has been judged merely so-so and distribution deals were slow to develop. The usual glamour was there, though, and there was plenty of off-screen news, from Woody Allen’s presser to Jean-Luc Godard’s refusal to explain his impenetrable Film Socialisme to protests over the film Outside the Law to outrage at Jafar Panahi’s imprisonment. With some questioning whether anyone cares about Cannes anymore, David Poland asked at the start of the festival if Cannes still matters; Eugene Hernandez answered yes, and at least on indieWIRE’s list of fifty leading festivals, Cannes is still #1.

2. Ted Hope offers 38 ways the American film industry is failing cinema (Brian Newman responds to one), plus some added reflections and thoughts on the value of cinema. A profile of indie producer Michael London explains how he’s dealing with new industry realities, and Guillermo del Toro proposes short films as an industry savior, while Mynette Louie says microbudget filmmaking is decidedly not a savior. African cinema could use a savior, as theaters are dwindling, but at least Nigerian cinema (Nollywood) is thriving, and African filmmaking was relatively well-represented at Cannes.

3. In Hollywood news, Bob Kerrey is expected to head up the MPAA, Marc Cuban is suing Paramount for millions over fraudulent accounting, and NPR featured a story on just such creative Hollywood accounting in connection with Gone in 60 Seconds. Elsewhere, Britain’s Hammer Studios plans to develop swankier horror films (figuratively and literally: Hilary Swank will be in one) and, inevitably, a 3D horror film. The latter will annoy Francis Ford Coppola, but James Cameron will say told you so. And in an attempt to foster U.S. box office success, the Indian film Kites will be distributed in two versions, one a traditional Bollywood romantic drama with extended dance sequences and the other a Brett Ratner recut that basically drops all the Bollywood bits (*sigh*).

4. A court ruled against file-sharing service LimeWire for copyright infringement, and PirateBay was briefly sidelined by court injunctions, but defiantly carries on. Nintendo is going after illegal game copiers and The Hurt Locker’s producers are going after illegal downloaders. One of those producers, Nicholas Chartier, is quite outspoken against illegal downloaders, which isn’t going over so well with some. Chartier should have a chat with British actor Peter Serafinowicz, who says he even steals movies he’s in. Steve Safran thinks maybe the only way to out-pirate the pirates is to get first-run films into our homes sooner.

5. You probably haven’t missed much of Facebook’s privacy mess, considering it even made the cover of Time. But here’s a condensation of the fallout (yes, this is a condensation; there was a lot of it): Some are responding in defense of Facebook or saying who cares or at least defending the value of publicness in some measure; writing thoughtful essays about the issues involved; demanding that Facebook as a company itself be more public and transparent; creeping us out with infographics; mocking those who don’t seem to realize that their very personal info is public (the folks featured there really need to use some privacy scan tools); working on Facebook alternatives; proposing a bill of privacy rights for social media; and calling for us to delete our Facebook accounts on May 31 or at least stay away from them on June 6. So far, Facebook has only promised to simply its privacy settings. As if the privacy backlash wasn’t enough for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to account for already, this fortnight also saw user data from Facebook and other social networks sent to advertisers without user permission; Zuckerberg embarrassed by old IMs, sparking demands for him to speak up about his current beliefs (while others say the attacks on Zuckerberg have gotten out of hand); Zuckerberg accused of securities fraud; and info leaked about Aaron Sorkin’s Facebook movie The Social Network in which Zuckerberg doesn’t come off so well (the phrase “sex maniac” certainly caught my eye). But wait, there’s more: Pakistan banned Facebook because of the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day movement. You know you’re having problems when both Pakistan and the ACLU are mad at you. Any good news for Facebook? Nike likes it.

6. Twitter has high hopes for its new advertising system, others are intrigued by the future possibilities of using Twitter for precise opinion polling, and Twitter reworked its trending topics algorithm to make it less Biebery, but Adam Ostrow said there’s more work to be done. Similarly, David Carr is frustrated by hit-generating, Google-luring headlines online. Vaguely related (I just had to fit it in somewhere): Harry McCracken has a great analysis of the word “fanboy” as a tech world put-down.

7. YouTube has turned five years old (a birthday which Conan O’Brien celebrated by picking out his favorite clips), and touts that its viewership now exceeds that of prime-time network TV. But Simon Dumenco claims that the latest YouTube sensation, Greyson Chance, owes more to TV than YouTube for his virality, while Justin.tv says it beats YouTube in time spent on the site.  Across its next five years, YouTube is hoping to foster more professional and profitable content. They might want to work on more professional corporate communication, too.

8. April saw yet another plunge in video game sales, while a report suggests game companies could pick up sales by better serving older and disabled gamers. Looking for more money itself, EA Sports announced a plan to charge gamers to play used games online. Given that nearly half of gamer money spent reportedly goes to used and online games, it sounds like a shrewd move. Meanwhile, MySpace hopes that online gaming will help turn things around for them, movie studios are turning to online gaming to generate greater audience involvement, and you can help fund Indie Game: The Movie. Thinking beyond money, game companies are going green and are also being called on to support fair labor practices.

9. Last week was the worst for album sales since 1991, and last year, a mere 2% of the albums released accounted for 91% of sales. In terms of online distribution, Leor Galil is frustrated that iTunes gets so many exclusive releases, so he might be happy with the news that Google looks ready to take on iTunes, and he should also check out Mashable’s list of seven sites for discovering new music.

10. The best News for TV Majors links of the fortnight: Law & Order Acting, TV=Art, Introducing Google TV, Upfronts Summaries: NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS, The CW, Sitcom Trends, Boycott Call, Content Power Ratings, Finale Advice, Lost Music, Mad Men & Women, Activities During Ads, FCC Waiver for Movie Studios