In The News

Amazon Studios is beginning to swap out its higher-pollution diesel generators with portable batteries on film and television production sets, the company has announced. The batteries, developed by Moxion Power, are already being used to power cameras, base camps, lighting, hair and makeup trailers and other equipment on the sets of rom-com “Sitting in Bars with Cake” and the series “Bosch: Legacy,” according to Amazon. 

Roku Search data shows audiences are turning to streaming services to stretch out the holiday season, with viewers beginning to search for festive content as early as mid-October. Officially, the holiday season begins the day after Thanksgiving. But after the stress and hardships of the last few years, many people are looking to stretch the joys of the holiday season a bit further. And with streaming services, they’re able to do so.  That interest in holiday films doesn’t die down until the beginning of February.

Mike Perreault, executive director of the Maine Film Center, was recently presented the Central Maine Growth Council and KV Connect 2022 Emerging Leader of the Year award.

Perreault has continued to empower filmmakers throughout the country under his leadership, managing Maine Film Center’s Maine International Film Festival, a 10-day event that showcases Maine and New England’s most innovative and creative filmmakers.

A bad sense of déjà vu is settling over the industry as the year winds down. Hollywood is in the throes of transition, and an economic downturn is on the horizon. And Hollywood’s scribe tribe is restless. The outlook for the next six months is starting to look a lot like it did in the summer and fall of 2007, the last time the entertainment industry’s biggest employers faced a work stoppage with the Writers Guild of America. There is no doubt that the guild is bracing for a battle. The studios are hastily starting to get there as well. The dreaded S-word — stockpiling — is happening, the industry equivalent of troops gathering at a border.

Disney joins Netflix and Paramount in moving from uniform policies while keeping them in place on some productions.

The latest iteration still empowers producers with the ability to require vaccines, though it appears fewer are choosing to do so as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations dwindle compared to this time last year. The pivot from some producers in their approach to keeping their sets virus-free is a sign that they might be less wary of the risk of costly production suspensions amid a lull in COVID-19 transmission.