Sky Sports pay increase from Setember?

The price of Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 is due to increase by £3 per month from September 2010. Sky are saying that this is due to the increase in the amount of Premier LEgaue games that hey are covering for the next three years, with the return of Monday Night Football on the satellite broadcaster.


The cost of watching Premiership football matches is set to plunge for sports fans willing to

Sky HD Thomson DSI8215 Box failures - Sky HD Costa Blanca Spain

The original Sky HD boxes, manufactured by Thomson (model number DSI8215 or 902020 or with serial numbers beginning 4E300) are notorious for developing problems between 12 and 36 months old.



This is usually due to capacitors dying on the power supply unit (PSU).

Either the combination of increased processing power and a larger hard drive allegedly appears to have caught Thomson out or most

Bilateral filter

Sky TV Frequency Settings for Costa Blanca Spain

This post should hopefuuly explain why you have to change the Default Transponder Frequency Settings for a Sky digibox when in Spain.

NO SATELLITE SIGNAL BEING RECEIVED MESSAGE
HOW TO CHANGE THE SKY DEFAULT TRANSPONDER FREQUENCY SETTINGS FOR SPAIN.

When a Sky receiver / digibox / box is turned on the first time the first thing the box tries to do is, amongst other things, to download

Sky TV In Spain - UK TV in Spain

UK / British Satellite Television in Spain Sky In Spain Sky TV in Spain

In order to receive satellite television you will require a satellite dish, a Low Noise Block (LNB) and a digital decoder. The satellite dish collects the signals and reflects them to the LNB which collects the signals and sends then down the cable to the digital decoder which then turns those signals into pictures and

English Premier League on Spanish TV

From 14 August and during the next three seasons, Canal + will broadcast the Premier League.

The Premier LEgaue will no longer be shown on TVE La2 or Teledeporte, as TVE have no longer the broadcast rights for the League.

Canal + will offer highlights and will broadcast the tournament in HD.

The Premier League is considered the best league competition in the world, with the power of teams

Possible loss of TDT Reception in the summer for the Costas

Reports of heat affecting TDT (Spanish TV)reception.

There have been reports in some Spanish media outlets that the heat during the summer is having an affect on the TDT TV signals across the Costas.

According to reports, emergancy work is being donw on many transmitters, with some more repeaters being installed in some areas affected.

This may mean that some popele may lose some channels.

房價創天價 營建股價暗藏玄機.....

房價創天價 營建股價暗藏玄機
自由 更新日期:"2010/06/23 04:11"

據說東區一間三十年屋齡的公寓成交一坪八十萬元，這代表什麼意義？首先，買家有可能是錢太多，不知道怎麼花用，不如買下一間老舊公寓，創造話題也值得。反正老子（老娘）有錢，愛怎麼花，就怎麼花，誰管得著！

其次，這可能是刻意炒作的手法，利用政府想打房又沒膽的模糊空間，炒高房價，讓買方產生焦慮感，趕緊進場補貨，正好可以乘機出清手中囤貨。

第三，每天都有土地買賣創天價的新聞，知名豪宅一坪叫價百萬元以上，已是稀鬆平常，市場人士每天也都在心戰喊話，宣稱房價只會漲不會跌，但是營建股的股價不但未突破新高，甚至與金融海嘯前的高點還有四、五成的距離。到底是股價不認同房價，或房價帶不動股價，頗堪玩味。

第四，一坪八十萬元的中古屋，更意味著一個年輕人若是幸運在東區擁有一戶四十坪的祖產，可以賣得三千萬元的價錢，靠這筆錢一輩子就不愁吃穿了；反之，若是沒有祖產的年輕人，一出社會就注定一輩子只能當無殼蝸牛了。

最後，很多市場人士辯稱首都的房價是外國人在決定的，台北相對於香港、上海、東京、首爾，算是便宜的。乍聽之下，似乎言之成理，卻忽略了台灣的房子是有三成多的公設，其他地方幾乎都是實坪計算，還原起來，台北的房價哪裡便宜？

更重要的是，房子是要給人住的，如果一個國家的中產階級買不起房子，又恰巧這個國家實施民主制度，它的人民難道不會用選票表達不滿嗎？所以，哪一個要取得政權的政治人物會容忍房價一直狂飆，而失去選民的支持？



sigh........

What is 玫瑰疹???

What is 玫瑰疹????

Some Changes to TDT – Important Sky Card Information – Sky Boxes switching off

Some Changes to TDT – Important Sky Card Information – Sky Boxes switching off

TDT is the Spanish Digital Television service available via your TV aerial. With TDT you can receive around 30 digital Spanish Channels. Although there are no UK or English channels on TDT, you can, in many cases, change the language of certain UK and USA imported programmes from the dubbed Spanish into English. In

Third Cinema in the Third World

With the first screenings of films like The Hour of the Furnaces by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino (1968), Black Girl by Ousmane Sembene (1966), or Memories of Underdevelopment by Tomas Gutierrez Alea (1968), moviegoers were confronted with a new spectrum of ideas, emotions, and images. A new cinema emerged from countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin American that directly assaulted the colonial past. The forebearers of Third World Cinema proclaimed both the necessity and the capability of defining the terms of their cultural expression. In his book Third Cinema in the Third World: The Aesthetics of Liberation (UMI Research Press, 1982), Teshome H. Gabriel not only analyzes some of these films, but examines interrelationships that determine Third World cinema: not simply films produced within the Third World, but an alternative cinema, '...a cinema of decolonization and for liberation... a Third Cinema.'

For Gabriel, Third Cinema is 'built on the rejection of the concepts and propositions of traditional cinema, as presented by Hollywood.' It also transcends national boundaries: 'Third Cinema is really not so much where it is made, or even who makes it, but rather, the ideology it espouses and the consciousness it displays.' It is a cinema that has evolved with, grown out of, and inspired anti-colonial liberation struggles; it is a part of the process of shaping national cultural identities. Third Cinema rejects the commercial priorities that dominate most Western models of filmmaking.

Gabriel clearly differentiates his approach from structuralist and semiological critical studies, methods he finds inappropriate for a full understanding of Third World cinema. He first outlines his conceptual framework, based on the work of theoreticians such Louis Althusser, Frantz Fanon, and Amilcar Cabral. All three have contributed to an understanding of the development ideological consciousness and the role played by mass communications in that process. But Fanon and Cabral figure prominently because of the direct experience of Third World struggles. Adopting Cabral's and Fanon's analysis, Gabriel enlists filmmaking, like other cultural activity, as a '"weapon" in the struggle for independence.'

His central thesis, then, is that 'any theory and criticism of film within the context of Third Cinema cannot be separated from the practical uses of film.' The implications of this position become clear when contrasted with the ideas proposed in Julianne Burton's essay 'Marginal Cinemas and Mainstream Critical Theory,' in the May-August 1985 issue of Screen, where she argues for the interdependence of critical theory from the developed world and Third World film. Gabriel, however, finds this relationship premature, even dangerous, because it presupposes a common purpose. Without rejecting Western critical theory, he attempts to elaborate upon and, indeed, discover the theoretical threads within Third World cinema. 

...any definition of film outside of the economical and social sphere has the tendency to see meaning in 'form' alone. A study which treats film strictly as a metasystem, does not take into account the external factors influencing it or the ideological mediation in operation, is misleading, and a gross error in any analysis of cinema.

Throughout his book, Gabriel synthesizes a theory of cinema based upon the objectives and definitions utilized and developed by Third World filmmakers themselves. Burton, on the other hand, disparages this.

Film criticism in [Latin America] suffers from ... [an] imbalance in that the vast majority of Latin American film journals have been founded and edited by people who are also directly involved in producing and promoting independent national cinema.

What Gabriel considers a fundamental strength, Burton views as a weakness. Although both would probably agree on the causes of this situation, their differing appraisals of the benefits raises some basic questions.

Among progressive filmmakers in the United States there has been little open dialogue regarding theoretical or ideological assumptions. Over the years, the historical separation between theoretician and filmmaker has become institutionalized to everyone's detriment. Film as a commodity first and art second (if at all) has been historically embedded within the North American film industry. Now, this skewed division is further buttressed by an ever-expanding educational system that quite often presents film production and film theory as conflicting interests. Thus we have distinctions like critical studies, vs. film production, cinema studies vs. filmmaking, political films vs. films notarized as art. What these separations create is a peripheral cinema that is socially conscious, but for the most part ideologically invisible. In fact, many progressive filmmakers in North America and Europe concentrate on Third World struggles at the expense of their own experiences. Finding the criticism produced under these conditions inadequate, Gabriel stresses, and Burton sidesteps, the political and social context within which Third World cinema has evolved.

Gabriel seems to revert to simplistic critical methods, however, when he attempts to analyze 'major themes in Third World Cinema,' such as class, culture, religion, sexism, and armed struggle. The author acknowledges the inadequacy of an approach that separates these themes and then proceeds to do just that. Indeed, this presentation seems a throwback to a restrictive, narrow, and debilitating thematic analysis, which Gabriel says he is trying to expand. Many of the films mentioned in this chapter - for instance, Lucia, Last Grave at Dimbaza, The Last Supper, and The Promised Land - function thematically on more than one level, often establishing dialectical relationships that require a complex analytical method.

Gabriel does manage to avoid the temptation to create inappropriate categories in his section on 'revolutionary films,' where he refines his definition of revolutionary cinema through an extended comparison of three films: Sembene's Emitai, Humberto Solas's Lucia, and Miguel Littin's The Promised Land. Littin judges a film revoluationary 'through the contract that it establishes with its public principally through its influences as a mobilizing agent for revolutionary action.' Sembene, however, had different thoughts about his film Mandabi: 'I had no belief that after people saw it they would go out and make a revolution.' In Gabriel's definition, revolutionary cinema is not bound by a specific model, but ranges from the intentionally incendiary to the culturally affirmative.

Gabriel also addresses the related question, what are the politics of style? Do similar ideologies necessitate similar styles? Does the absence of close-ups mean that the film cannot be socialist? Or, does the preponderance of Soviet-style montage mean that a film is less bourgeois? Gabriel believes that no single style is bound to a particular ideology, abut that a distinct style reveals a film's ideological undercurrents. Style is not simply a function of directorial design; it also consciously  reflects a film's national origins and aspirations to maintain a national identity. This relationship is elaborated in Gabriel's analysis of four sets of films, including Bay of Pigs (USA/NBC) and Playa Giron (Cuba). These two films depict the same historical event but differ radically in both perspective and intent: the NBC film individualizes history; the Cuban film emphasizes the collective meaning of history. In Bay of Pigs the leaders of the U.S. government assume the foreground, and the CIA-financed invasion force is relegated to a supporting role. Thus, the CIA becomes the elusive villain responsible for the aborted invasion. But in Playa Giron, the Cuban people become the heroes, while Castro plays a minimal role. Both films retell an event. The historical episode retold in Bay of Pigs reproduces an illusion of truth and objectivity. Playa Giron, on the other hand, 'thus acquires a self-reflective dimension as it reveals the process of its construction while foregrounding the problematic relation between history (the events) and fiction (their recreation).'

Gabriel concludes with an important distinction, 'Cultural Codes vs. Ideological Codes,' based on the theoretic concepts of Cabral, who '...interprets the Third World struggles for national liberation not only as a product of culture, but also as a determinant of culture.' This is in keeping with Gabriel's whole project: to demystify the various elements of Third World cinema, presented not only as actual accomplishments, but as possibilities as well. In his conclusion he states, 'Third Cinema aims at a destruction and construction at the same time...' And his book acknowledges and dissects both sides of this contradiction. Gabriel's study should prove important for those trying to reconcile their own artistic imperatives with everyday social reality.'

[This is a slightly edited version of a review written by Allan Siegel, at the time associate director of Third World Newsreel. It originally appeared in the film and video monthly journal The Independent, Vol. 9, No. 2, (March 1986), pp. 27-28.]

Pet Shop Boys - Go West (Live O2)

Thanks Anferne's info...

and another favor one:
Pet Shop Boys - Did You See Me Coming?

Sky Sports to screen England Euro 2012 away matches

England's away games in the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign will be shown exclusively live on Sky Sports, it has been announced.

All four matches in Wales, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Montenegro are included in new rights deals that bring live away qualifiers for Wales, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, along with Fabio Capello's men, to Sky Sports.

The five nations will appear live in

罪惡貪婪的人類, 無辜可憐的生態與鳥兒們.....

and more....

Light Stage in Taiwan!

http://tw.nextmedia.com/applenews/article/art_id/32578901/IssueID/20100611
here and here....

Advanced Lighting, Rendering & Compositing

數位內容學院, 在職班新課Advanced Lighting, Rendering & Compositing

Class outline:

課程內容包括燈光原則、控制、算圖、合成。透過分析好萊塢大製作電影實例，說明如何運用簡單而有效率的方法，在大量製作時維持美術風格一致。

Day 1 (10:00~12:30, 13:30~17:00)

I. How to seeWhat is good lighting

II. How to control your light and tell the storyDifferent types of lights, cone angle, light fall off, barn door, and shadows

III. Rendering managementHow many layers do you need? More is more, or less is more?IV. How to compositing images properlyDiscuss edge treatment, color space, workflow

Q & A

Day 2 (10:00~12:30, 13:30~17:00)

I. How to work efficiently in big productionHow to keep shots consistent from different artists

II. Case study from the instructor’s demoreels Including ‘Alice in Wonderland’, ‘G-Force’, ‘Spiderman 3’ , ‘Speed Racer’, ‘Beowulf’, ‘Monster House’… ect.

Q & A

講師 Kuan Lin and his IMBD info.

ITV HD viewers miss first England World Cup goal as broadcast switches to commercial

ITV managed a spectacular own goal on their HD channel with their flagship World Cup game, Englands first game of the 2010 world cup competition.

ITVHD suffered "technical" problems affecting the ITVHD chanel on Freesat and Sky HD.

Just before Steven Gerrard scored, ITVHD went into advert mode and a Hyundai advert appeared. ITVHD viewers rejoined just in time to see Gerrard celebrating the goal

Best Rated Satellite Tv Provider - New Promotions

The best rated satellite tv provider does it again with its new promotion package!

I know you've heard about it and seen it in the tv commercials; Dish Network is now offering free hd for life to eligable subscribers.
Find Out If You're Eligible For For Free HD For Life

Terrorist Films and National Events

The portrayal of Arabs and Arabic culture in American films changed to reflect broader sociopolitical contexts in recent U.S. history. In the early 1980s, the image of a Russian enemy served as a convenient articulation of foreign fear - a kind of xenophobia that makes for good film as well as for reinforcement of cultural boundaries. As U.S. foreign policy shifted from involvement with the Soviet Union following the end of the Cold War, the characterization of Arabs as a threat to American interests intensified. Though Hollywood movies have included anti-Arab sentiments throughout moviemaking history, the fall of the Soviet Union, corresponding roughly with the Gulf War in 1990-91, brought a rapid escalation of the demonization of Arabs in American film.

Oversimplification of good versus evil, with a nationalist face on each, is effective propaganda and masks underlying ideologies. The more subtle the message and cinematic device, the more powerful and effective the process of creating the Other. With the splintering of the Soviet block, a threat loosely portrayed as Russian persisted in American film, and political discourse prevailed to construct a generalized sense of insecurity. The Gulf War, the attack on the USS Cole, and bombings of the Oklahoma federal building and U.S. embassies reinforced this ideology. An ideology of fear does not require concrete evidence of an enemy actually on our doorstep, only that they might be someday.

Following the events of 9/11, depictions of terrorism in film shifted almost exclusively to faces of Arabic origin. This is not surprising, given the tremendous impact of that day on U.S. society. However, factual accounts document that the threat of Arab terror was hardly a salient construct on the American collectivity prior to 9/11. Not only did these events change many facets of daily life, but also media images permeated America's psyche. America now has one enemy, it seems, and the face is Arab.

In the early 1980s, with the ghosts of Vietnam and involvement of the Soviet Union, Russians were the embodiment of evil portrayed on screen. This is easily observable in movies such as the Rambo trilogy. America was continually involved in battling communism and was seen as champion of the free world.

Interestingly, the Rambo movies allow us to view through a hyperbolic Hollywood lens the transition of one group from heroic ally to vile terrorists. As late as 1988, Arabs were still presented as good people fighting for freedom against Russian tyranny. Following 9/11, Russians virtually disappeared from the cinematic subconscious, despite the fact the Russia still maintains a substantial military force and the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

During this period of cinematic production, Arabs remained the noble warrior, doing exactly what Americans would expect if our homeland were under attack. Masoud, the mujahideen leader, proclaimed: 'Most of the Afghan people are very strong, and we are determined not to be driven from our land... What you see here, are the mujahideen soldiers, holy warriors.'

Following the events of 9/11, the admirable traits of Arab freedom fighters as portrayed by American film virtually disappeared. Gone is the scourge of communism and present is a new global threat from non-Christian fundamentalists, portrayed as endangering our way of life. Such portrayals overgeneralize, leading the naive observer to believe all followers of Islam are potential terrorists. It also distorts reality. While most Americans believe that Christianity is predominant globally, less than one third of the world population reports their religious affiliation as Christian (ABC News, 2007). To connect the American idea of religious 'minorities' to evil, films such as Syriana and The Kingdom serve to clearly connect Islamic fundamentalism to terrorism. The silver screen operates as an ideological tool for a culture of fear.

With subsiding support for the war in Iraq (World Public Opinion, 2007), the cinematic focus continues to link Arab culture with terrorism. As a term of popular discourse, terrorism is loaded with 'culturally-specific meanings' that are transcoded in film as non-Christian and Arab (Jackson, 2006). The link between politics and cinema becomes clear in the participation of the U.S. Department of Defense in the production of anti-Arab and anti-Islamic Hollywood films. Iron Eagle (1986), Death Before Dishonor (1987), Navy Seals (1990), Patriot Games (1992), True Lies (1994), Executive Decision (1996), Rules of Engagement (2000), and Black Hawk Down (2001) were all films made with the assistance of the Department of Defense (Blauvelt, 2008). In Rules of Engagement, written by former Secretary of the Navy James Webb, justification for killing civilians is provided in the story line when it is discovered that even children were armed and trying to kill U.S. soldiers.

We end this discussion by asking the so-what question: Why does any of this matter? What are the implications of a culture of fear perpetuated and enhanced - perhaps even created - by a celluloid image? As Barry Glassner (1999) reminded us, we are all too often afraid of the wrong things. We focus almost exclusively on a country and a people - or our idea of them - when in actuality they pose little threat to our way of life. In such an increasingly borderless globe, group differences may become less defining. We do not downplay the significance, and the horror, of 9/11. We do invite readers to question and critique media representations of cultures, especially as they parallel political and economic realities in an increasingly global network of interdependent social worlds.

[This essay was extracted from L. Susan Williams and Travis W. Linnemann, 'Scripting an Enemy: Portrayals of Arab Terrorists in American Film,' in Jean-Anne Sutherland and Kathryn Feltey (eds.), Cinematic Sociology: Social Life in Film (Pine Forge Press, 2010), pp. 203-5). For further reading on this topic, see J.A. Progler 'The Utility of Islamic Imagery in the West,' Al-Tawhid: Quarterly Journal of Islamic Thought and Culture, vol. 14, no. 4, Winter, 1997.]

Hacking Satellite TV

People are always talking about hacking satellite TV and whether or not it is possible. There are a lot of people who claim that they are able to hack into DirecTV and get free programming and even free equipment.It sounds too good to be true and it is because you can get caught if you hack satellite TV and can end up getting in serious trouble.There is no satellite TV company that is going to allow people to just rip them off and get hundreds of channels without paying a dime.

Hacking into cable has long been a problem but even trying to start hacking satellite TV can get you into a world of trouble.In fact, there have been quite a few cases particularly recent cases that go to show just how serious a crime this is and how much trouble you can get into.There was one man who had to pay nearly $1,000,000 and face three years in prison for hacking satellite TV from DirecTV for a year.He now faces $750,000 in fines and also jail time of up to three years.

Sure the idea of hacking satellite TV may sound like a dream but it is just not worth it.Satellite hackers are putting themselves at great risk and all over TV it is really not worth it.The rates of satellite television piracy are continuing to spike and as they do, authorities are taking all the proper measures to ensure that these satellite pirates are getting what they deserve and getting harsher punishment.Satellite TV piracy continues to grow at an alarming rate.

People are always going to think that they are ingenious and come up with different ways to get their satellite TV for free but the smartest move is to just keep paying your bills.Of course the reason that these satellite providers are so upset over this matter is because they are at such a loss from all of this.These satellite TV providers are losing millions of dollars a year from people stealing their programming and getting it for free.The worst part is that most of these people have the audacity to make a profit off of their satellite TV which they are getting for free.

Whether you know it or not, there are sports and other bars and businesses that will hack satellite TV and then charge their customers money to see the different programs.So not only are the satellite companies at a loss for their own programming but then the pirates are making the profit from it.You can hack satellite TV as many people do but the risks are great and the punishment harsh.It is a far better idea to do things the legal way and get signed up with a satellite TV provider and pay your bills than try to cheat your way around it.

Free satellite TV

Free satellite TV is one of the biggest myths on the internet and I've dedicated this short piece regarding this oxy-moron. There is likely a few reasons you have found this page. You may have seen sites offering free satellite TV, or you may be trying to find information on pirating DirecTV signals. I will explain the latter and I will explain what these sites mean by "free".

When you see the offer "free satellite TV", they are talking about a free setup and free equipment offer that DirecTV and Dish network provide. After your system is installed for free there is a monthly fee you must pay for a minimum programming package. At the time of this writing DirecTV and Dish Network offer 3-5 rooms of free setup and free equipment.

The other way you may have found this page is if you were searching for information on the free satellite TV the pirates offer. What they do is program Dtv or Dishnet cards that enable people to get all channels. (hence the name "free satellite tv") Now they charge you to re-program your card every time you get hit, and you have to pay for the equipment and setup all yourself. You will be hit 1-3 times a week. Only once if you are lucky.

So as you can see, no matter how you slice it, there is no such thing as free satellite tv. Regarding the theft of satellite signals - there is a considerable effort underway by the police force in my city to put a stop it. They just recently raided over a dozen companies providing the equipment used to pirate DirecTV and Dish Network. This just means that the cost and hassle of stealing will increase.

Free satellite tv is an oxy moron to say the least. There is no such thing as free satellite tv. Period. For all those who disagree, let me explain. When speaking of free satellite TV, there are two different situations this is used to describe. One is when pirates are stealing satellite signal. Two is when DirecTV and Dish Network advertise free satellite TV.

When DirecTV and Dish Network advertise free satellite TV, they are speaking in terms of the initial setup and equipment. You still have to pay for your monthly programming costs which start at just under 30 dollars a month. As you add on more channels and use pay-per-view the monthly cost grows. Don't get me wrong, it's still much better than cable.

When pirates are speaking of free satellite TV, they are talking about using special equipment to get all the channels free. Highly illegal. The problem is that this is not free! They have to buy the receiver, the dish, the LNB, the card, etc etc. Then they have to find a "free satellite tv guy" to re-program their access card(s) every time the satellite signal is hashed. And they "go down" a lot!

What DirecTV does is "hash" the pirate cards with their satellite signal on a regular basis. Usually they hit the pirate cards every Friday night and here is where the "free satellite TV" theory goes out the window. These " free satellite tv guys" charge a fee to have your card fixed. It can range between 25 dollars and fifty dollars a month. Now add on the gas mileage and your time to run over to the illegal "free satellite TV guy" with your card once a week. Now here is the real kicker. DirecTV will hash the pirates sometimes 3-4 times a week. So now you can end up taking a daily trip to see the "free satellite guy".

The "free satellite guy" may get out of their illegal business as soon as the heat gets to be much and you are stuck. The interruptions in viewing are endless and annoying. You may enjoy free satellite tv for the odd two week period but most of the time you are running back and forth to the "free satellite tv guy".

Now for the punch line regarding free satellite TV. Eventually DirecTV will change their data stream and your DirecTV card is now a useless piece of plastic. Maybe you can use it to open an old door. Now the "free satellite guy" has a deal for you. You can get a new DirecTV card from him for whatever price he decides you need to pay. Sound like fun! Oh yes... free satellite TV is an oxy moron to be sure!

Don't get confused between 'Freeview' and 'Freesat'

Don't get confused between 'Freeview' and 'Freesat'


Freesat is a free digital service broadcast from the Astra 2 satellite. It needs a dish mounted on the outside of your house to receive the service, and a digital set-top box or a TV with an integrated satelliter receiver.

Freeview is the name of the free domestic digital terrestrial service in the UK, brodacast from a network of land- based

Nickelodeon channels have moved frequency

The Nickelodeon channel have moved frequency.
It has affected:
Nickelodeon Europe
Nick Replay
Nick Toons
Nick Junior

This has meant that some people will be receiving the "no signal" message on their Sky box when wanting to watch these channels.

The new frequency for these channels is a North Beam frequency. The north beam frequency means that reception will be tricky in the afternoon, when

Subtitles and Film Marketing for US Audiences

In 1985, the folks at Orion (today Sony Picture Classics) were trying to figure out how to market Akira Kurosawa's 'Ran' to US audiences. Co-founder and co-president Michael Barker remembers clearly how he and co-founder / president Tom Bernard saw the dilemma: they thought this was a film that could really appeal to young audiences yet, Barker recalls, 'at the time, young audiences wouldn't go to subtitled films.' So they did something that was so brilliantly obvious that it's hard to believe it wasn't already commonplace, something that instantly became the norm: they had a trailer made for 'Ran' that omitted the Japanese and thus rendered subtitles unnecessary. They marketed the film, in other words, with the hope that it might be mistaken for an English language picture. 'We knew that if we could just get them into the theater, then they'd love the film,' says Barker. Art house distributors had adopted the retailers' bait-and-switch tactics, and they were working.

With Marcie Bloom, Barker and Bernard ran Orion until 1991, when the trio left to found Sony Pictures Classics. They strategy continued: in November 1988, they had a huge success with Pedro Almodovar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown after putting out a pumped-up, no-Spanish-here trailer. Barker still chuckles over a story he attributes to New Yorker Films founder Dan Talbot, who went to a movie theater to see Zhang Yimou's Raise the Red Lantern, a Mandarin language film from China that Sony Pictures Classics released with the same, no-dialogue trailer strategy. The audience settled contentedly in their seats until the opening credit sequence ended and the talking - and subtitles - began. Then, Talbot reported to Barker, a sudden burst of groaning was audible. The audience was face-to-face with the ruse and realized it had been duped. But people stayed. And the film became another hit.

In 1986, just a year after the Orion breakthrough with Ran, Russell Schwartz was head of marketing for Island Pictures. He was trying to figure out how to position Dark Eyes in theaters, given that its stars were multinational talents working in languages including English, yet the film itself was in Italian with subtitles. Marcello Mastroianni could have made an English language film; it just happened, in this case, that he hadn't. The solution? Same thing: a trailer that disguised the language of the film itself and disclosed no subtitles to give pause to a prospective ticket-buyer. Schwartz thinks he might have done the same thing even earlier, but Dark Eyes is the one that really sticks in his memory. And he isn't proud of it. 'I never really believed we were fooling the public, particularly when the only place these trailers ever ran were in the very theaters that played the subtitled versions.'

Nonetheless, a trend had begun, and along with his colleagues at other companies, Schwartz remained committed to the new kind of trailer. After Island, he worked for the infamous Weinstein brothers at Miramax. During 1990-2, as their marketing guy, he imported the practice and fine tuned it. In February 1990, Cinema Paradiso broke records; in 1992, it was Meditteraneo. With the kind of full-on push that Harvey Weinstein is so famous for marshaling, the no-foreign-tongue trailer became a point of entry that Miramax adopted, sanctioned, and would virtually put on steroids for the remainder of the decade, all in the effort to increase the number of bodies (and dollars) for its foreign language films. Like the college guy who gets his date drunk to make sure he gets laid, the marketing departments of many distribution companies in the 1990s, especially the mini-majors, came to believe that if it were only possible to manipulate prospective audiences into the desired position, they'd say yes.

One of the most memorable trailers of this period wast the one introducing audiences in the summer of 1995 to Il Postino (The Postman): it used the voices of movie stars reading Pablo Neruda to imply that the voices declaiming in English were somehow excerpted from the Italian language, subtitled film.

The campaign for Shall We Dance?, the Japanese film about a salaryman who falls in love with ballroom dancing classes and his teacher, went even further. The trailer showed the couple dancing but made their race indeterminate, sustaining the illusion of the nonexistent dialogue; unlike Ran, it didn't allow the audience to peg nationality visually. The poster showed only dancing feet, shorn of nationality. A universal picture, indeed, especially with the characters pictorially decapitated and reduced down to fancy, and of course inherently non-verbal, footwork.

While it's the companies with muscle that have really pushed this strategy, even smaller companies have had to follow suit. Nancy Gerstman and Emily Russo at the boutique distributor Zeitgeist Films admit to giving in to the trend and crafting no-translation-please trailers for films with crossover appeal. Defending the practice as inevitable in the current market, Gerstman points to the necessity of trying every trick possible to increase audiences at a difficult time for the quality films they distribute. Furthermore, Gerstman points out that trailers changed in many was during the 1990s that accelerated the move to drop dialogue: the pace sped up, the number o cuts increased, and in general trailers adopted a new form that was increasingly incompatible with all dialogue, whether in English or another language. Need I point out the practice also coincided with the full establishment of music videos? And channel-surfing, a practice that sped up television in an effort to grab viewers before they passed on? the shift away from foreign language trailers was as overdetermined as it was multifunctional.

In 2003, with a surprise success on their hands (the German film Nowhere in Africa by Caroline Link had won the Oscar for best foreign language film and taken in nearly $5 million by mid-spring), Gerstman and Russo had to become experts on the current status of subtitling, too. As it turns out, subtitling technologies had improved, first with laser processing and then with new fatter letters, outlined words, and semi-transparent bands that have contributed to increased legibility. The idea was that once the public was seduced into the theater by the notion that there are no subtitles, at least the subtitles that would meet the presumably resistant audience were better.

Jack Lechner, today a producer with Radical Media, spent the 1990s in the script development department at Miramax. He remains in awe of the effort that Harvey (by now, the first name alone suffices for identification) was willing to make to overcome the famous American resistance to subtitles. It didn't stop with trailers, either. In 1993, when Miramax was distributing the French film Les Visiteurs (The Visitors), Weinstein decided that a dubbed version would do better business. He hired Mel Brooks to supervise a full American re-cut and dub. Lechner recalled that it wasn't even released on video.

On the other hand, when Miramax acquired Princess Mononoke, the Japanese animated film by Hayao Miyazaki, Weinstein went all out: he hired Neil Gaiman to write the English adaptation and secured such notable actors as Claire Danes, Minnie Driver, Billy Crudup, and Billy Bob Thornton to provide voices for the cartoon characters. This time, the strategy resulted in a huge hit. With no real-life characters, audiences were willing to accept the dubbed version.

When Miramax tried to repeat the gambit by releasing a dubbed version of Life is Beautiful, though, it failed again. And when Miramax crafted a similar campaign for Pinocchio in 2002, with advertisements that made it look like an animated film and with another star-studded roster of actors (such as Glenn Close) supplying voices, it was the biggest disaster yet.

If the good news is that American audiences won't accept dubbed movies, the bad news is that they don't seem to accept the alternative, either. According to a recent Los Angeles Times article, 'even quality subtitles, however, don't bring in the crowds.' The article quotes Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co., a firm that monitors box office performance, as saying, 'American audiences generally don't want to go to the movies to read. They'd rather the experience flow over them, be spoon-fed rather than interactive. Reading dialogue takes them out of the movie, they say, shattering the illusion.'

[This essay was excerpted from a longer piece by B. Ruby Rich entitled 'To Read Or Not To Read: Subtitles, Trailers, and Monolingualism,' originally published in Subtitles: On the Foreigness of Film, edited by Atom Ergoyan and Ian Balfour (The MIT Press, 2004, pp. 157-162).]

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