Academy Sells Out Short Film Showcase for Third Year

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Short films, once the exclusive domain of emerging auteurs, have gone mainstream as the booming popularity of YouTube.com and other video film sharing sites attests.


You aren’t going to see the Oscar nominees online anytime soon (and if you do, there’ll be a lawsuit on the way) but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is nodding to the emerging popularity of the form.


The Academy will host a screening of this year’s nominated shorts at the 1,000-seat Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills on Feb. 20. The event sold out, at $5 a ticket, in a matter of hours.


This is the third year the Academy has screened the shorts for the general public before the Oscars are handed out; from 1997 to 2004 the showings took place after the awards show.


The Academy thinks the screenings may help boost viewership of the televised Oscar ceremonies on Feb. 25.


“It’s hard for most people to get to see the shorts before the show,” said Academy spokesman John Pavlik, “so this makes it much more fun for people because they can watch the show and have a rooting interest the shorts when they see them.”



Teflon Jeff

Once-dominant NBC has seen its ratings slip in the past couple of years. That didn’t stop its parent, the General Electric Co., from naming Jeff Zucker, head of the conglomerate’s television group, as president and chief executive of NBC Universal.


Jeff Immelt, who is replacing Bob Wright as chairman of NBC Universal, said that in some ways NBC’s travails had helped him settle on Zucker, who worked out of Burbank for years. The network has fallen from first to fourth under his watch.


“He never got down in tough times; he always drove harder,” Immelt said at a New York press conference. “He is tough, passionate and the right person to lead.”


Wright will remain chairman of the board of NBC Universal until May 1 and Zucker will continue to report to him. After that, Immelt will assume the chairman’s position at NBC Universal.


Zucker offered no sweeping vision for the company. He said his priorities are to “keep the momentum we’ve discovered in primetime” and “make sure that content is available in as many places as possible and that we are getting properly paid for it.”


At 41, Zucker is a year younger than Wright was when he first took the reins of NBC in 1986. Immelt credited Wright for transforming it from a standalone broadcast network to a diversified media concern with a film studio, cable networks, a Spanish-language network and theme parks.


“He turned the network into tremendous global entertainment powerhouse,” Immelt said. “He did it by seeing around corners and picking up what was next. Financially, GE shareholders have benefited from his stewardship.”



Bid Business

Think speeding tickets are costly?


They’re not by Long Beach Grand Prix standards. The price of exceeding the limit on Shoreline Drive and trading paint with celebrities and professional race-car drivers in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach’s Celebrity Race is about $50,000.


The 33rd Grand Prix will run on April 13-15.


An online auction (www.longbeachgp.com) for this year’s celeb race spot began last Monday, and will run through Feb. 14. Proceeds from the winning bid will go to the Grand Prix Foundation of Long Beach, which has contributed more than $2 million to a wide cross-section of charitable organizations.


That’s presuming, however, that there are some proceeds. As of midweek, no one had bid on the celebrity race position, which requires a minimum of $50,000 bid. Last year, the first time the auction was held online, only a few bidders turned out and the winning bid was $50,350.


“We’re hoping to do a lot better this year,” said race spokesman Christian Esslinger. “The online auction has been a change for us, and this year we’re trying to make people more aware that it’s up there.”


The winning bidder gets to join the rest of the celebrity and professional field for four days of professional driver’s training with Fast Lane Racing School at Willow Springs Raceway.



Slipped Discs?

Some industry observers have suggested that the launch by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of its online movie download store last week marks the beginning of the end for the DVD.


The giant Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer, however, says that’s not necessarily so, at least anytime soon. Wal-Mart’s online video service debuted with digital downloads of about 3,000 films from all of the major studios available. Wal-Mart accounts for about 40 percent of DVD sales, and studios have been careful not to anger their largest customer.


The retailer faces the same challenge that confounds other online video sellers the fact that films cannot be easily transferred from a computer to a larger TV screen. Consequently, Wal-Mart says it doesn’t expect digital sales to cannibalize its retail DVD business for many years.



Agreement Off

In response to an item in last week’s Entertainment column, representatives from KCRW-FM (89.9) said an agreement to broadcast the “Nocturna” show live from Hollywood’s Avalon nightclub has been canceled for the time being.



Staff reporter Anne Riley-Katz can be reached at

[email protected]

or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 225.

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