A Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Orga Typewriter in my backyard

I was casually browsing vintage typewriters yesterday (as one does) and came across something which immediately jumped out at me.

It was a Weimar era Orga typewriter which looked surprisingly like the 1/2 typewriter Orga Modell 10 (1947) which appears in the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Paramount Pictures, 1971). These typewriters were manufactured in Germany  from 1923-1950 and some were distributed in Britain, typically under the brand name A.M.C.  Given that the film was shot primarily in Germany, this shouldn’t be too surprising.

I’ve yet to see an Orga for sale in the United States much less a Modell 10. Buying and shipping any Orga from Europe is generally quite expensive, and I wouldn’t trust that it would arrive intact. This one was a short drive from me at a fantastic price, so naturally I couldn’t pass it up. It appears to be an older Orga-Privat Model 5 (circa 1928-1933) which is labeled in English as a “New Orga”. (It also reminds me a bit of Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum too.) Rather than the typical German QWERTZ keyboard, this one has an English QWERTY keyboard and appears to be in great condition. Sadly it won’t come with the original case. From what I can see in the typewriter database, it’s one of the few that has English badging with the name Orga on it. This  leads me to believe that it was originally sold in the British market, so it could easily have been the sort of machine that Grandpa Joe might have used.

I’ll be able to pick it up later this week and can’t wait to clean it up. The tougher portion: how to cut it precisely in half!?

Some thoughts on the HBO Max day-and-date streaming releases during the pandemic

Earlier today Keith Calder asked a intriguing question about the Warner Bros. announcement to release their upcoming slate on HBO Max date-and-date with movie theaters.

So let’s give it a whirl then, shall we?

Warner Bros. is a primarily a distribution company and to some extent acts like a bank. 

Generally most of their contracts are written to protect themselves and their financial interests at the highest end, not the interests of the producers or production companies that work for them. 

Usually they’re acquiring content from production companies and the acquisition doesn’t tie them down to particular release patterns, marketing dollars, or other preconditions. Producers can consult on some of the decisions, but usually the studio is going to do what it wants.

This is done, in part, because it’s in everyone’s general interest that the picture makes the maximum amount of money. Usually the studio is putting (at least some of) their own money up in advance, so it doesn’t behoove them not to maximize their return.

Production companies, directors, writers, and actors all rely on them having skin in the game. In this case, they’re the ones left physically holding the bag.

With this move, the studio is covering its (and everyone else’s) best interest by attempting to recoup as much as they can. Since they control the release from top to bottom on their own platform all the money goes into their own pockets instead of giving a sliding percentage of it away to so many of the popcorn and carbonated sugar syrup grocery stores that masquerade as movie theaters these days. 

One also needs to keep in mind that it’s quite common for talent contracts to fester for long after the start of principal photography and some never get to the point of receiving wet signatures. I’ve seen dozens of contracts get wet signatures long after their films’ theatrical releases.

So it’s entirely possible that they could be waiting until now to drop the bomb. But what is the talent going to do? They’re not going to fail to show up and support their work, that’s for sure. Everyone knows the business is in the hole and not coming back any time soon.

The finance costs of some of these movies would completely eat the studios alive if they don’t do something. What else can they do? The best they can. Grin, bear it, and keep the gears turning.

And let’s not forget about the total turkeys which can be illustrative. There are many movies that get made and acquired and don’t get a release at all. Sometimes the studio makes the determination that it’s in their interest to sit on a film and never release it because the cost of prints and advertising is just too great.

Here’s a great example. Do you remember the 2000 blockbuster hit The Third Wheel starring Ben Affleck and Luke Wilson?

What?! Never heard of it? Affleck shot it between Reindeer Games and Bounce while starting talks for doing Pearl Harbor for Bruckheimer at Disney.

His star was on the rise after Good Will Hunting and Armageddon and it was generally obvious to Mirimax and the producers (which included Matt Damon and Ben Affleck), that an incredibly mediocre film starring him might potentially end his career or the pairs’ producing careers.

So, what the heck? We only spent a few million on it, so we’ll eat the cost of production and maybe release it in a handful of foreign territories in a cheap dub a few years down the road and no harm, no foul. Right?

But what about all the other crappy movies that come out and tank at the box office? It’s often not until your film has had a test audience screening that the studio truly slots its release date. Any dates prior to that are just flexing to scare the competition. 

After a test screening, the last thing you want to hear is that it’s coming out in late August or February. Studios don’t release movies in those time periods—they escape! Those slots are the kiss-of-death because no one goes to the movies then.

The studio knows that but generally needs to recoup some money. Typically they’re also paying interest on production loans or bridge financing which they can’t sit on forever.

So in an effort to clear the books, they push the movie out with the least amount of P&A so that they can begin bundling their films into all the follow up release windows in hopes that those will at least cover their cost.

If there are law suits after-the-fact, they’ll likely be over the back end deal segments that provide bonuses for talent for box office performance. But guess what? Usually creative finance on the studio’s part is done to prevent these bonuses from being paid out in the first place.

And shame on the agents and attorneys of the talent for not adding in bonus payouts for performance of releases in each window segment of the pictures lifespan. You can bet those clauses will be baked into contracts going forward.

I’ve got some first look and producing deals as well as some acquisition paperwork kicking around the office here, but without looking through them, I’m pretty sure that there’s nothing in those contracts that requires the studio(s) to actually release anything.

Of course it only hurts the studio to buy material and just sit on it, so can you fault them for doing the best they can? 

My guess is that with the givens, they’ll get a massive bump in (recurring–everyone’s favorite) subscription income and it will either mostly or completely cover a large part of the gap. And likely better for their part, it’s harder for talent to audit internal numbers and machinations within a studio to prove that the movie made it to profit levels necessary to pay off points on the back end.

If there is a contractual obligation lurking around somewhere, they’ve always got a force majeure clause in there somewhere that would certainly cover the issues they’re living with.

Some of the more interesting questions relate to the studios’ relationships with exhibitors which generally aren’t owned by them. That may be a slightly harder question, but what are theater owners really going to do? They can’t guarantee the box office turn out that they might have before, and a poor box office turn out is more likely to do irreparable damage to a film’s release in all the subsequent windows. 

Generally with a sliding scale of box office receipts going to the exhibitors, they’re really in the business of selling popcorn which is where they make all their profits, but as we all know, that’s not doing very well for them right now either.

It’s actually more likely in the studio’s interest to pull their films. Their smaller budget releases in January and February are far more likely to overperform by being released during the pandemic to audiences who can pay a premium for them and who may feel a dearth of new entertainment options.

Meanwhile all the parents who couldn’t afford the $100+ for the babysitter and incidentals are likely to appreciate their HBO Max subscription all the more.

But wait! There’s more! I’ve completely buried the lede! Peter Kafka alludes to it in his interview with WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar earlier today, but I suspect he is completely unaware of it. (This is likely why Vox gets the interview in a soft presser and not a senior legal journalist with The Hollywood Reporter or Variety.) For the careful viewers at home, let’s not forget that the 1948 Paramount Consent Decree died quietly earlier in August this year. This essentially makes it much easier for studios to become vertically integrated again. The studios can now own the entirety of the finance, production, distribution, and exhibition chain like they could in the “Golden Era” of Hollywood. If you want to ask questions about something, this is the area to focus on! 

Give it another couple of years and studios will eventually own talent agencies again… Who’s going to be the next Lew Wasserman?

If only we had a President who was also in the entertainment business who could monkey around with this arrangement the way Reagan did…

Watched Mind yer Scots - Dr Michael Dempster full interview from YouTube
Dr Michael Dempster - Full Interview. Speaking to 'The Big Night In' Dr Dempster discusses the origins of the Scots language, Scots in popular culture, place names, common attitudes and various initiatives to encourage people to use and understand their own Scots tongue.
Interesting note about the TV show Shetland and the language used and how it was affected by the BBC as a production entity.

Mention around 23 minutes about the Anglicization of Scots words that not only don’t make sense, but remove the relationship between the people and their land.

Read How an unknown British actress played a role in the downfall of two Hollywood moguls by Stacy Perman (Los Angeles Times)
Ron Meyer, the former vice chairman of NBCUniversal, was the second mogul embroiled in a sex scandal with Charlotte Kirk to be toppled in less than two years.
Read Anne Hathaway Recalls Christopher Nolan’s Advice for Playing Catwoman in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ by Ramin Setoodeh (Variety)
How did Anne Hathaway become Catwoman? To portray Batman’s purring nemesis in Christopher Nolan’s 2012 movie “The Dark Knight Rises,” the actress realized that she needed to…

Hathaway also recalled a specific detail from Nolan’s movie sets. “He doesn’t allow chairs, and his reasoning is, if you have chairs, people will sit, and if they’re sitting, they’re not working,” Hathaway said. “I mean, he has these incredible movies in terms of scope and ambition and technical prowess and emotion. It always arrives at the end under schedule and under budget. I think he’s onto something with the chair thing.”

Read Fox Says Discovery About 'Simpsons' Composer Culminated in Firing (The Hollywood Reporter)
In new court papers, 'Simpsons' producers say they were surprised and disturbed to learn that Alf Clausen was having his son and others create music for the animated comedy. Fox demands an end to an age bias suit as an impingement of its First Amendment-protected decision-making about the show's music.
Listened to Computers Judge What Makes The Perfect Radio Voice by Audie Cornish from All Things Considered | NPR

A few weeks ago, All Tech Considered asked the audience to send voice samples to analyze. Those samples were put through an algorithm to figure out what kind of voice would make an appealing radio host. NPR's Audie Cornish explains how this experiment turned out.

hat tip: What do authority and curiosity sound like on the radio? NPR has been expanding that palette from its founding | NiemanLab
Read What do authority and curiosity sound like on the radio? NPR has been expanding that palette from its founding by Jason Loviglio (Nieman Lab)
From nasal New York accents to vocal fry, NPR's anchors and reporters have long inflamed debates about whose voices should represent the nation — or just be heard by it.
WNYC Studios’ On The Media recently had a piece on the history, science, and engineering behind How Radio Makes Female Voices Sound “Shrill”.

This piece on NPR is a great example of how we’re still dealing with these engineering and social problems nearly a century on.

👓 Days of Our Lives cast let go from contracts, as the show struggles with ratings | CNBC

Read Days of Our Lives cast let go from contracts, as the show struggles with ratings by Díamaris Martino (CNBC)
The entire cast has been released from their contracts, although the show has not bee canceled yet, according to an exclusive by TVLine.

👓 Werner Herzog on ‘The Mandlorian’ and Why He Hasn’t Seen ‘Star Wars’ | Variety

Read Werner Herzog on Why He Didn’t Need to See ‘Star Wars’ Films for ‘The Mandalorian’ Role (Variety)
At first sight, playing a vital character in Jon Favreau’s “The Mandalorian,” Disney’s live-action “Star Wars” series, which the studio is using to launch its ambitious streaming venture, might appear to be an odd move for Werner Herzog.

Do you watch any television?
I do, I watch the news from different sources. Sometimes I see things that are completely against my cultural nature. I was raised with Latin and Ancient Greek and poetry from Greek antiquity, but sometimes, just to see the world I live in, I watch “WrestleMania.”

WrestleMania! This has to be the quote of the year from Werner Hertzog.
November 12, 2019 at 10:35AM

🎧 Sheila Nevins on Age, Sex, Love, Life, and Everything Else | Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

Listened to Sheila Nevins on Age, Sex, Love, Life, and Everything Else by Alan Alda from Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

Sheila Nevins has explored the human condition in the thousand or so documentaries she produced for HBO. From more than 30 years of telling us stories about ourselves, to her experience as a woman in the workplace, Sheila has plenty to say about communicating. And she never holds back. In this delightful episode, Alan Alda talks with Sheila about her life, how she feels about aging, the #MeToo movement, sex, divorce, documentaries, storytelling, and just about everything else! This episode is sponsored by Calm. Check out www.calm.com/alda for more details.

I always forget that Sheila is as old as she is. She does have a great sense of humor.

She makes an interesting point about humility that people with power (and especially within the entertainment industry) should be aware of and work to improve.

Most shocking was the story she tells about her me too moment and how she viewed it. Definitely a perspective I wouldn’t have expected.

Her perspective about looking at individuals as a way into human problems and making documentaries is similar to a philosophy I remember hearing from Masha Gessen in an interview that Jeffrey Goldberg did with her. The upshot is that, especially for righting wrongs and general atrocities, focusing a story on a particular individual has a lot more power than focusing on the nameless and faceless masses. Sheila’s example of the Holocaust survivor is a particular apt one. (As I think about it Masha would be a great interview for this podcast.)

In fact, I recently watched an immigration related documentary on Frontline and while I didn’t personally find the lead woman very relate-able or sympathetic, I was still pissed off at the process because her individual story was still so powerful.

This general ideal also reminds me of the gut-punch scene at the end of the film A Time To Kill (1996) [spoiler alert] which ends with the command to the jury “Now imagine she’s white.”

👓 ‘Lion King’ director Jon Favreau explains why he’s remaking an animated classic | TechCrunch

Read ‘Lion King’ director Jon Favreau explains why he’s remaking an animated classic (TechCrunch)
Disney has been cranking out live-action remakes of its animated library for the past few years — in fact, Tim Burton’s “Dumbo” just left theaters, and Guy Ritchie’s take on “Aladdin” is currently at the top of the box office. But these distinctions get tricky wi…
I was reading some other Tech Crunch stories and recognized Caleb Deschanel in the photo for this article, so I clicked to see what he’s been up to lately. I actually recognized him before Favreau…

👓 ‘BH90210’ Showrunner, Multiple Writers Quit Fox Series Revival (EXCLUSIVE) | Variety

Read ‘BH90210’ Showrunner, Multiple Writers Quit Fox Series Revival (EXCLUSIVE) by Joe Otterson and Matt Donnelly
There is drama behind the scenes of Fox’s upcoming “Beverly Hills 90210” revival that is worthy of — well, “Beverly Hills 90210.” Showrunner Patrick Sean Smith and multiple senior-level writers have quit the six-episode series, which is titled “BH90210.” The exact reason for the exodus is unclear. One source said the dispute was over interference from two of the show’s lead actresses, while another noted that the writers were unhappy with one of the executives overseeing the project. Paul Sciarrotta has been named the new showrunner along with series’ creators Chris Alberghini and Mike Chessler. Sciarrotta, a member of the show’s writing staff, is currently under an overall deal with CBS Television Studios, which is producing the series.

👓 'Sneaky Pete' Producers Adjusting Season 3 After Ricky Jay's Death | Hollywood Reporter

Read 'Sneaky Pete' Producers Adjusting Season 3 After Ricky Jay's Death (The Hollywood Reporter)
The magician and actor, who died Saturday, had his final acting role on the Amazon series.

👓 Altadena Filming Committee submits report on filming permit accountability | Altadena Filming

Read Altadena Filming Committee submits report on filming permit accountability (altadenafilming.org)
The Altadena Filming Committee has prepared a report addressing accountability in Los Angeles County’s filming permit approval and enforcement processes. The report was prepared in response to the issue raised most often to the Committee: the lack of accountability by County departments.