With the premiere of Michael Eisner's second web series The All-For-Nots, here's a quick review of the new media world according to Eisner. His company's first series was Prom Queen. According the Eisner, it cost $3,000 per 90 second episode, was seen by 20 million people and made, "a couple thousand dollars." Though it had more shots of girls in bikinis than the original, Prom Queen's sequel, PQ: Summer Heat, was seen by fewer people and "lost money." Despite this (and his view that the writers strike was insane because "it [was] over a business and a marketplace that is not evolved enough to even know if there is a business or a marketplace there"), Eisner is determined to make Vuguru "the leader in high-quality, story driven content produced for new media platforms." He premiered The All-For-Nots with sponsorships from Chrysler and Expedia, distribution on Bebo and Verizon's V-CAST (not sure who paid who for what) and a simple strategy: produce cheap content that makes people laugh and cry. With little deference to Eisner's experience producing content that is professional, tear-jerking, and cheap, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington paid Eisner what must be high praise in Silicon Valley when he wrote that...
With Hulu about to officially launch, here are some quick ways to get smart. First, check out the site when it debuts, probably some time this week. (If you can't wait, email me and I'll give you one of my ten "invites" to the beta.) The site has an elegant interface and high quality video. (I watched it in my office on a 24" Mac from six feet away. It was great. There just might be something to this TV on the Internet thing.) And though the programming selection seems scattershot - just 5 episodes of House, 9 episodes of The Office, the entire 39 episode first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents but none of the second or third seasons - I can't be too critical of any site that lets me watch all of Arrested Development whenever, wherever and for free. Also see Fortune Magazine's fawning piece about the company, a joint venture between Fox and NBC, with a $100 million investment from a possibly crazy venture capital fund. The article, complete with photos of geeky programmers and laughing execs, reveals Hulu has spent $15 million so far, is run by a former Amazon executive Jason Kilar who brought...
Click here to see her post on the UH Union Blog.
The strike is over. The WGA contract has been ratified. SAG and AFTRA are now center stage and there is still a lot of work to do before the town gets back to normal. At this moment it's useful to look back at our own history. There are lessons to be learned about how the process can move forward even against what seems like overwhelming odds. There are many who labored behind the scenes to support the writers' strike. At United Hollywood we worked with people who put their energy on the line but wanted to stay off the media's radar. Not content to just talk a good game, these are members and supporters who knew that if they wanted to make a difference, they had to work at it. One group in particular came of age during the early part of the strike: the writer-directors. Nicknamed the WD-40, forty writer-directors met to search for ways they could help facilitate the negotiation. From the beginning of the strike, most journalists accepted the AMPTP's lead and described the DGA and WGA as antagonistic to one another. Nicholas Counter was frequently quoted in the trades as preferring the DGA as a negotiating...
May 8 
