Film ON AIR

No, stars aren’t wearing headsets on the red carpet (yet), but Skype (http://www.skype.com) is making an interesting move in this direction. The company is using its video conferencing program to connect the Cannes Film Festival to the stars who sadly couldn’t be there. American Pavilion will be using Skype in their ‘In Conversation’ and ‘Industry In Focus’ series, in which filmmakers have daily discussions about different aspects of the film industry. They can practically give an interview from the set they’re currently filming on.

Director James Cameron will be one of the people using Skype for the interviews at Cannes. I reckon he’s busy enough with post-production on ‘Avatar’ as it is, so I assume this is why he opted for a little video call. Or he’s just lazy, but I wouldn’t dare to call a man with the highest grossing movie of all time (’Titanic’) lazy. By using Skype, he will be able to talk to the audience on a big screen at Cannes, which I imagine would be just as impressive as the real thing.

It’s good to see the film industry embracing the internet. Not only are they creating ways to get legal content out there, but they’re also connecting to their audience in a new way. Like Guillermo del Toro’s internet chat session about ‘The Hobbit’ next weekend. Or all the movie production blogs in recent years. It seems like moderated video chats with the big stars are just around the corner. Instead of traveling all over the world to promote their movie, they could just take a couple of video calls. Where do I sign up?

I know you love cinema, why else would you be here? Well, here’s a cool opportunity you might want to join in on. Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro will be answering some questions about ‘The Hobbit’ for a full hour Saturday next week — or Sunday, depending on where you live. The ‘party’ will take place at Weta Holics, with both directors answering pre-selected and live questions.

I love it when ‘big’ people keep connected with their audience. It shows how they care about the fans and don’t take themselves too seriously. The internet is a great medium to do this. You might get a lot of dirt if you put up your own website and answer your own emails as a ‘Hollywood star.’ But it will at least keep you grounded. The opposite of what happened to someone like Tom Cruise, who mostly had nodding donkeys around him.

Hoping not to lose anyone in the deal making process, Gandalf and Gollum both already agreed to do the next Hobbit movie. In an interview with theonering.net, director Guillermo Del Toro said “I had the most charming meeting with Sir Ian, and all bureaucracy pending, he’s on board, as is Andy Serkis. [...] It is our intention that we will not lose any of the key elements.“

Considering Bilbo Baggins is the main character of the ‘The Hobbit’ book, Ian Holm might be getting the best deal out of the two movies. While the contracts for the first three ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies were probably signed before the movies got shot, the potential of the ‘The Hobbit’ movies is already known. It’s like asking an extra figure for the payment of a sequel to a box office hit.

But the audience might not mind someone else playing Bilbo Baggins as much as someone else playing Gandalf. In a couple of months we’ll know if someone was getting a little too greedy.

There it is, the announcement we were waiting for. I guess Guillermo Del Toro currently has to let his work on ‘Saturn and the End of Days‘ rest, because he will move to New Zealand for the next 4 years (!) to work back to back on the two Hobbit movies.

The news came from executive producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, who won’t be making the film because of the Wingnut Films (Jackson’s production company) lawsuit against New Line Cinema.

New Line is producing the fantasy and the movies are co-produced and co-financed by New Line Cinema and MGM.