Stick with me on this one, it's kind of convoluted. A few days ago the Wall Street Journal reported that Sumner Redstone, CEO of Viacom, was about to be relieved of "$400 million, or about 20%, of his family's holding in Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp. to repay debt to comply with loan covenants." Basically the tide went out and Sumner was caught swimming without a bathing suit. But why was one of the sharpest dealmakers in the industry about to part with 20% of his family fortune? The Journal named his daughter, Shari Redstone as the culprit.

This radiant Dark Knight review just came in from guest correspondent Jason Calacanis. Jason writes:

Paramount Pictures is in trouble and I don't see a Federation ship on the horizon that's going to swoop in and save them. You probably already knew that their star player is looking to get into business with an alleged Indian video pirate. Then just yesterday the studio admitted to losing a $450 million film financing deal with Deutsche Bank. Normally I wouldn't raise an eyebrow over a financing deal gone bad, but apparently some of the funds were meant to cover films currently in distribution. From The Hollywood Reporter:

Paramount's outside financing effort was designed to provide production funds for two dozen or more feature films from its upcoming slate, including "Tropic Thunder," produced by DreamWorks

Next week Paramount screens "Tropic Thunder" for the press. The film is in the can, so there shouldn't be any remaining production costs. Did Paramount just lose their ad budget?

Robert Rodriguez has been in the press lately for his marital woes (pictured here with his woes), but I prefer to think of him as the UT film student that shopped a $7,000 feature for the spanish home video market (El Mariachi) all the way to fame and fortune. If you want to know how he went from total obscurity to being represented by Robert Newman at ICM you should read this early interview. The interview took place during Robert's first trip to Sundance and in it he announced "I created my own film school, the Robert Rodriguez Film School."

Though the school only operated for a short time, six years later Robert released a short called Ten Minute Film School that dissected a chase scene from El Mariachi. He's released additional episodes over the years, which together make up a nice primer on low budget filmmaking. The videos are worth a look, but I wouldn't be much of a whaling captain if I could be comforted with just that. After a little digging I was able to find an early class transcript in which Robert promised to teach the students everything they needed to know about film in ten minutes.

For your consideration, here is the original Ten Minute Film School:

If you read the Wall Street Journal this morning you could not have missed the front page story about Spielberg's impending deal to sell a large stake in DreamWorks to Reliance ADA Group. What you might not have known is that Reliance is also on the radar of Universal Pictures' Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations group for allegedly pirating Hollywood content.

Did you know that Alan Rosenberg, president of the Screen Actor's Guild, was elected into office by only 8% of the registered SAG members (Morgan Fairchild, the runner-up, got 7%)? And now this guy is threatening to shut down the town with an actors' strike. In the middle of a recession. Is this guy nuts or what? I'm worried that he's going the route of Ronald Reagan who, during his time in office, became convinced that he had actually been a navy fighter pilot and a cowboy. Alan played the role of a cut-throat attorney on L.A. Law, and when he was elected to run SAG back in 2005 he said, ominously,"I am looking forward to ... ensuring Screen Actors Guild is the great and powerful organization it has been and always will be." Alan has certainly been playing power politics of late.

I don't know about you, but I like babies. They're adorable. Who doesn't like babies? Well apparently Moby doesn't. I went to his website and applied for the Moby Gratis program. It's a program where supposedly he'll give you the rights to one of his songs for use in your web video. So I proposed "Giant Baby Attack!", the moving story of a giant baby that devastates downtown San Francisco. It was going to be a green screen epic. Sounds great, right?

The New York Times ran a great story this weekend on John Sloss, a sales agent for independent films. John is starting up a company called Cinetic Media that "will act as sale agents for filmmakers who have been left on the sidelines". Hmmm, what an altruistic guy, you must be thinking. Well, read on, the article said his "goal is not exhibition in theaters but rather distribution via the Internet and other growing delivery routes like cable on-demand services". Oh, I see, venues in which filmmakers actually lose money.

It seems that YouTube's video streams don't make it all the way to New York, because if they did Mr. Sloss would realize that there is no money in web video. Just last week Akimbo threw in the towel after trying to sell video on-demand over the internet. How are all these people losing money on web video?

Where do you go to get Mr. Willis a double-tall half-calf iced latte in Holland, Michigan at 1:00 AM? Hundreds of newcomers to the business will get a chance to find out when production ramps up in Holland this year. Why is Hollywood making the migration to Holland, Michigan?

I was poking around Warner Bros. the other day and I came across a long lost, forgotten press kit site. Parts of the site hadn't been updated since 2002. It was like a treasure trove of bad decision making. You can see first-hand how excited Warner Bros. was about the movie Poseidon. Pictured above are Mike Vogel (who went on to star in Cloverfield) and Emmy Rossum (who never worked again). A disclaimer on the site said that these photos are to be used solely for the purpose of review, so let me say now that this next scene is the exact point at which the movie began to suck.



The plot literally got stuck in a ventilation shaft and by the time it worked its way out you were actually praying for the boat to sink and the lights to come on. See more photos...

If I was a betting man I would put my money on the internet having a hand in the eventual downfall of the studio system. While the studios' approach to innovation has been to threaten it with legal action, the rest of the world happily embraces technology. Which is ironic since the studios were once at the forefront of moving picture technology. But I guess once the money starts rolling in it's hard to walk away from the table and look for a new game. Well, it looks like Sony/BMG just got back into the technology game.



Here's the email that some YouTube members (that illegally uploaded the song "Float On") received from Sony/BMG this week:

This morning the Wall Street Journal looked at the titles that Chuck Lorre puts at the end of his shows (referred to as vanity cards). They are covered in text that can only be fully read if you pause the screen. Chuck uses the vanity cards to say some choice things about television executives.

Keep in mind that television executives are the ones distributing these missives (as a result of broadcasting his shows, "Two and a Half Men" and "The Big Bang Theory"). Read the saga of Chuck Lorre's vanity cards at the Wall Street Journal.

Today Microsoft's IPTV product passed a key benchmark as it finally reached 1 million paying subscribers across all markets in which it is available. What is IPTV? It stands for Internet Protocol Television, and it's AT&T's best hope for retaining its customers as the cable companies slowly drain them away. AT&T's hope is that by offering a television service powered by Microsoft software their customers will stay glued to AT&T and will not switch over to the cable triple play (which offers cable, internet and voice for one low price).

Hal Plotkin's been making the rounds with his new site for documentary filmmakers, ReelChanges.org. The site asks the public for donations for user submitted project ideas, which could result in a new funding mechanism for documentarians. He must be on to something, because the site proudly displays this quote from the legendary Ken Burns:

ReelChanges provides a more modern set of tools and methods to build public awareness and crucial support for the documentary arts.

Good luck Hal! You can see how far along he is at ReelChanges.org.

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