Acclaimed producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins may replace tough-tongued Brit Simon Cowell as judge on American Idol.
The music producer, who has worked with a bevy of artists, including Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, and Janet Jackson, reportedly drew the attention of Idol producers, when he appeared as a judge on Diddy’s MTV reality show, Starmakers.
“He’s very Simon-esque,†The [...]
Hip-hop producer The-Dream and R&B singer Christina Milian have eloped, TMZ.com reported on Tuesday.
Less than two months after the 27-year-old “Dip It Low” star confirmed her engagement to the father of three, the two wed as the clock struck midnight Friday morning in a private ceremony at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas [...]
Russia has now surpassed Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest oil producer.This is obviously important both economically and geopolitically. America’s close ally in the Middle East has now been surpassed by the former US enemy, one of the BRIC countries…
Homicidal loon Charles Manson — who is incarcerated for life stemming from the notorious Manson Family Murders of 1969 — is forging ahead with plans for a musical career and is seeking help from a fellow inmate, legendary producer Phil Spector. Manson is known for masterminding the savage Tate/LaBianca massacre forty years ago.
Spector is serving [...]
Saif Ali Khan get excited when he talks about his next film, Agent Vinod. Not only because he relishes the idea of playing out childhood fantasies as a secret agent with toys for boys, he is also eager about the title being his attachment as a producer.
He agrees that it is in the realm of [...]
Actress Jane Fonda is reportedly dating music producer Richard Perry.
According to a source, the two are now “inseparable” and are probably living together.
The actress has reportedly been visiting the musician during his rehearsals for the musical “Baby, It’’s You” in Los Angeles.
“Jane has been attending almost every rehearsal with him,” the New York Post quoted [...]
As the BBC Trust says it ‘would like to see greater range and ambition across all types of drama’, legendary producer Tony Garnett argues that its executives need to open up the production process and devolve more power to creative talent
I am not an enemy of the BBC. I am a critical friend. True friends point out your failings – however uncomfortable that makes you – and the anguish in the creative community and the short-changing of the audience make me feel obligated to speak some truths about BBC drama.
The problem is systematic and cultural. The BBC’s drama department has changed over a generation in ways which have coarsened both it and wider culture. The corporation has built an organisation which is perfectly tuned to allow it to exercise control and to crush the creative act – despite creativity being one of its main reasons for existing.
I make this argument in a longer article that is currently circulating on email – and which you can read in full. But it is worth briefly explaining the conditions drama producers are working under, here.
A writer will work up a pitch and take it to the BBC executive. There will be some discussion. “Can the characters be skewed young?” Well, considering they are senior hospital consultants, it might be difficult to go very young, but we will try. “I don’t mind where it’s set, really. I don’t want to be prescriptive, but somewhere other than Birmingham, perhaps? Manchester would be good.” And so on.
Eventually a pilot script may be commissioned. Then the producer gives notes on the first draft and another is written. It goes to the BBC. Long delay. Maybe months. Then notes from the commissioning editor. A new draft is written. Long delay. Then more notes. Finally another meeting, with more notes, but contradicting the previous ones. Yet another draft, or two. More long delays – you are maybe now two years in.
If you are lucky, the show is green-lit. But don’t think you can just go off and make it. Your suggestions for writers for directors will be turned down. There will be demands for someone coming off a hit, someone in fashion, the flavour of the month. Various stars are suggested, all miscast and not even stars. There is no point arguing. Eventually a compromise is negotiatedand production starts.
There are notes on rushes. Notes on each cut. An executive presence at the each stage of post production. Eventually the show is delivered.This experience is typical. Sometimes it is smoother, sometimes it is worse. It often takes about three years.
In order to change the system, there needs to be a change of culture at the very top. This will be difficult. BBC drama executives are too used to a narrow pyramid of power; too comfortable with hoovering up all artistic decisions, even those outside their competence, and so afraid of mistakes, they would rather paralyse creativity.
But the BBC is not just another consumer goods company.Its impetus should be driven by individual artists, not marketing executives. It is the guardian and generator of the cultural life of our society. It is time for the senior executives to wake up and take their responsibilities seriously.
• First, they should smash the pyramid where many can kill a project but only one can make it happen. There should be more sensibilities at work, more tastes on the screen, a greater choice of buyer. Four channels and one buyer is an arid arrangement.
• Second, the relationship between high-volume drama and more authored pieces must be brought back into balance. Not all drama can sensibly be set in a place called Holby.
• Third, the taking of artistic decisions must be devolved to the producer and then further, to the directors, actors and writers. The energy should be writer up, not executive down.
• Fourth, using the internet in its own right, the BBC should break out of traditional genres and dramatic forms. With tight budgets it should be releasing energies, knowing that some of them will fall flat. I have been failing all my life. I get up and try to fail better.
I am not looking for a macho row – I am merely expressing what the whole industry is feeling. I am hoping for a productive discussion. We all deserve that.
• Tony Garnett is a producer whose credits include Cathy Come Home, Law and Order, The Cops, This Life, Between the Lines and Ballykissangel
NEW YORK (AP) — “So tired today,” Annemarie Dooling tweeted early Tuesday. “really really tired. ugh.”
A couple of hours later, things really really picked up.
“My bank was just held up — with me in it. HSBC 34 and 8,” the 26-year-old Web …
Soul and funk take centre stage in this week’s podcast as Jason Solomons gets down with Stewart Levine. The legendary music producer is the man behind Soul Power, an extraordinary documentary chronicling the three-day festival in Kinshasa, Zaire pegged to the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle fight between Ali and Foreman. Levine shares how he got the idea for the concert, and how he and Hugh Masekela put together a dream ticket of performers (including Miriam Makeba, Bill Withers, BB King, Celia Cruz and main attraction James Brown) and crew (including producer Leon Gast and cameraman Albert Maysles). He explains how the venture survived the news that the fight had been postponed, and how the 450,000 feet of film footage was distilled into this joyous film.
Xan Brooks then joins Jason to review the week’s key releases: Claire Denis’s haunting 35 Shots of Rum; Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen’s followup to Borat; and Paul Schrader’s cool biopic of the Japanese author, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters.
And finally, Jason meets Rebecca Miller and Robin Wright Penn to talk about The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Miller’s movie of her novel. Miller, who also wrote and directed the film, tells Jason how she managed to change Alan Arkin’s mind about playing the part of an elderly publisher who betrays his perfect wife, while Wright Penn shares what it was like to work with the veteran actor.
