What do Heroes, ER, Brothers & Sisters, Dirty Sexy Money, House, Bones, CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, NCIS and My Name Is Earl all have in common? They are all still in production despite the usually-horrible summer TV season already upon us (NBC’s All American Summer, anyone?).

This is because of the Writer’s Strike, though if you talk to anyone in production, they will call it “the new method of television production,” or some such thing.

When the WGA took to the streets and effectively shut down TV, most programs got a two-month hiatus smack-dab in the middle of their seasons. After the strike, most abruptly halted shows went back into production with an abbreviated episode order. Some, like House, were forced to move whole plot lines into next season.

But now that production has resumed and finales have been filmed, what are some of TV’s most consistent shows doing still shooting episodes? And why is Heroes in production even though they (wisely) decided to prematurely end Season 2?

It’s all part of the reactionary system of television production, which is going to make itself known to the world during next week’s upfronts…

If you have been following our coverage of Union Bitch-Fight 2008, you’re pretty aware that SAG and AMPTP negotiations were only extended for two, paltry days before the AMPTP was going to break off and negotiate with AFTRA in an attempt to rope in SAG by getting AFTRA to agree to a similar deal as the WGA and the DGA.

The difference being that SAG’s been asking for more money over a few different issues, notably the actor-centric pay scale for guest appearances and extras.

As expected, the AMPTP called off negotiations with the Screen Actor’s Guild, leading SAG to issue a pres release to its members demonizing the AMPTP while simultaneously trumpeting: “Guild Offers to Continue and Negotiate ‘Around the Clock’ to Complete Deal.”

We’ll let sit the fact that they’ve just now started to go “around the clock” now that negotiations have stopped. A rational person would ask: shouldn’t you have been going around the clock this whole time, since failure to reach a deal will result in another costly strike?

Luckily, we don’t need a rational person, ‘cause Michael Bay went and got pissed all over his message boards.

In the words of the Gossip Girl marketing department: “OMFG!’ a Tom Cruise website. An official one started at TomCruise.com

But, there is a notable feature missing…

Though Los Angeles is frequently called LaLaLand by our New York-based B&U staff, it is called that lovingly because it is so intertwined with the highly absurd industry of making entertainment.

New York, on the other hand, is the capitol of piracy, with over 50% of the pirated films you find on the internet and in the hands of your immigrants with DVD burners shot in New York movie houses.

That’s about to change and your pirated access to films currently in theaters is the target of new New York anti-piracy law that, for the first time, includes the threat of up to a year in jail for first time offenders.

Past that: Felony. No joke.

For recording movies!

Details on the penalties after the cut!

The negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild and the producers and money-lovers of the AMPTP have decided to meet both today and tomorrow to continue negotiations that all industry news sites have dubbed futile.

AFTRA, SAG’s annoying little sister is ready to step in on Wednesday and negotiate a deal that will work as a wedge in-between SAG and what SAG is demanding, so what does SAG do?

Reduces their demands.

What they are no longer asking for and why it’s f*cking stupid after the cut.

For those of you that like to watch your media digitally (guilty), good news comes today in the form of a press release from Apple:

Apple(R) today announced that new movie releases from major film studios and premier independent studios are available for purchase on the iTunes(R) Store (http://www.itunes.com) on the same day as their DVD release. New releases and catalog titles will be available from 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios. Movies purchased from iTunes can be viewed on an iPod(R) with video, iPhone(TM), Mac(R) or PC or on a widescreen TV with Apple TV(R), with new releases priced at $14.99 and most catalog titles at $9.99.

New releases available for purchase on the iTunes Store this week, concurrent with their DVD release, include “American Gangster” and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” Other popular titles now available for purchase include “Juno,” “Cloverfield,” “I Am Legend,” “There Will Be Blood,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.”

This is a big step forward for Apple whose digital rental service was cool, but ultimately just for those who were really lazy and didn’t mind burning a few bucks to watch a movie in 24 hours.

Now we can be lazy and actually OWN the movies that we want. Pair this up with some Toast, fancy anti-DRM coding and a DVD burner and we’re in business! Literally!

We’re feeling pretty good today. Who knows why. Maybe day after day of little to nothing happening has finally made us snap and remember that things rarely happen in huge bursts; Britney’s fine now, we don’t need to give you minute-to-minute updates, the continued Union Bitchfighting doesn’t yet involve a strike, so no big news there.

However, our Hollywood 2.0 category could use some beefing up, especially with the cool shit that is going around the ‘net.

Here are some stories that foreshadow how entertainment is changing along with technology:

South Park’s Internet Symbiosis – The LA Times blog talked to South Park co-creator Matt Stione about how South Park “grew up” with the internet and how distribution is changing. The article includes three audio clips from Stone who continues to prove that the South Park guys know exactly what they are doing, it may not be viable, but at least they have a plan:

When I asked co-creator Matt Stone about having a show that bridged the gap from the pre-Internet era to now, he knew what to say.
“We kind of did that on purpose.”
Which is a good joke, but the thing is, there’s some truth to it. From the beginning, Stone and co-creator Trey Parker have been medium-agnostic — always saying they didn’t give a fuss if the show played on a TV, a computer or a plastic Happy Meal wristwatch as long as fans were watching it. Back in 1997, that may have sounded anathema to Comedy Central and parent Viacom Inc., but now it looks like master augury, as the line between TV and the Internet becomes ever less distinct.

NIN Releases “Discipline” - We’ve been trying to trumpet the ongoing Radiohead V. Nine Inch Nails internet spat to everyone in “real journalism” that would listen. Our conversation with a SPIN editor went nowhere, but that was before Radiohead released the re-mixable stems for “Nude” on iTunes, semi-shamelessly aping remix.nin.com, which has been giving away free stems from Trent for months already. When NIN and Radiohead were announced as co-headliners of Lollapalooza, some internet outlets started to pick up on the fact that Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, the two biggest internet-release bands currently in existence, have been mirroring each other’s distribution methods.

The next shot was fired two days ago when a new Nine Inch Nails song called “Discipline” started getting radio-play to the excitement of online Nine Inch Nails fans. Turns out, the song was mastered and within 24 hours was on the radio. Within hours of its radio-debut, the track was up on NIN.com for free download. When downloaded, the notes in the MP3 said: “Check NIN on May 5th,” leading to speculation that Reznor is going to release his second NIN album in three months.

Your turn, Radiohead.

EMI Wants Music Kept Offline – Also in the music distribution biz, EMI is suing MP3tunes, a “music locker” site that allows you to upload your music, then access it from any browser. EMI suggests that this is illegal because it allows file-trading.

MP3tunes has alerted it’s users via e-mail as to why this is stupid:

Files are not MP3tunes’ possessions any more than the contents of a safety deposit box are owned by the bank that houses them. The storage provided by MP3tunes is the user’s own space. A Locker is empty when someone opens an account and that customer decides what files are placed into their Locker. All files are stored at the request of the user. People who choose to utilize remote storage should be guaranteed the same level of privacy they have for the files stored on their local hard disk… if you don’t have the right to store your own music online then you won’t have the right to store ebooks, videos and other digital products as well. The notion of ownership in the 21st century will evaporate. The idea of ownership is important to me and I want to make sure I have that right and my kids do too.

Other happenings in the loop with Hulu, et al, but nothing substantial. Just thought these points would be fun stuff to chew on for those of you ready to exploit all this new media bullshit.

Or, you know, you could take up theater again.

Yesterday we reported on Sunday’s biggest news item: the announcement that Viacom, Lionsgate and MGM are going to form their own pay-cable channel to compete against HBO/Starz/Showtime.

This announcement was a surprise to mostly everyone because Viacom film properties are still in negotiations with Showtime. Someone screwed someone, and everyone wants to point the finger elsewhere.

For one thing, the three companies are still negotiating the terms of a long-term partnership with Showtime, once again; as far as everyone knows. This could be a big show in an attempt to get Showtime to up their offer for film content.

This makes sense because the announcement was as buried as it possibly could be, being that it was released this Sunday. Pair that together with the disturbing lack of actual details about the channel and we might be looking at a hoax.

But there is another rumor going around, one that much more Hollywood 2.0. Find out after the jump!

Just a week or two ago, we wrote about the new web-series “Blood Cell” starring Jessica Rose, the former LonelyGirl15.

If you don’t know what that is, check it out on our old post or look it up on Wikipedia, because a small group of man-boys can only re-cap internet sensations so many times before they don’t feel like ever re-capping again.

The news about the LonelyGirl phenom is that they have been picked-up/bought-out by Spark Capital, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, Conrad Riggs of Mark Burnett Prods., Silicon Valley venture investor Ron Conway and former Google director Georges Harik.

For those of you who only see the company names in the above paragraph, that’s fine. Google, Netscape, Mark Burnett, venture capitalists: it’s big.

LG15/Telegraph Ave. Prods., which is being rebranded as EQAL (which stands for?), starts with a $5 million dollar investment to build a staff that will continually produce serialized interactive web stories.

More details and sourced quotes below the cut!

This is strangely right up our alley.

We thought we’d check out the EW interview with both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg because getting those two in a room together with press for five minutes is sort of like trying to take a hamburger away from the table shared by David Hasselhoff and Kristie Alley.

If you got that joke, try to suppress the laugh, it’s that low-ball humor that has Lucas and Spielberg doubting our intentions.

Check it:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Of course, there are downsides to the burgeoning Internet age — and one of those downsides is, when a popular movie is coming up, people sort of peck it to death before it even opens. There’s been a huge amount written on the Internet about the development of Crystal Skull, including lots of spoilers on chat boards — though most of it is clearly labeled. Is it getting harder to protect the development process?

STEVEN SPIELBERG: It really is important to be able to point out that the Internet is still filled with more speculation than facts. The Internet isn’t really about facts. It’s about people’s wishful thinking, based on a scintilla of evidence that allows their imaginations to springboard. And that’s fine.

GEORGE LUCAS: Y’know, Steven will say, ”Oh, everything’s out on the Internet [in terms of Crystal Skull details] — what this is and what that is.” And to that I say, ”Steven, it doesn’t make any difference!” Look — Jaws was a novel before it was a movie, and anybody could see how it ended. Didn’t matter.

SPIELBERG: But there’s lots and lots of people who don’t want to find out what happens. They want that to happen on the 22nd of May. They want to find out in a dark theater. They don’t wanna find out by reading a blog…. A movie is experiential. A movie happens in a way that has always been cathartic, the personal, human catharsis of an audience in holy communion with an experience up on the screen. That’s why I’m in the middle of this magic, and I always will be.

Do you think the sanctuary of the dark theater is being eroded?

LUCAS: No! Look, it’s like sports —

SPIELBERG: Yes. I think it is being eroded, by too much information and too much misinformation, especially.
LUCAS: But look, it’s like sports. This isn’t new. When March Madness gets started with the NCAA [basketball tournament], there are thousands of blogs out there. Rampant speculation. If you follow it enough, you go crazy. [With Crystal Skull], you don’t know what’s actually gonna happen till you walk into that theater. I don’t care if you know the whole story, I don’t care if you’ve seen clips. I don’t care how much you’ve seen or heard or read. The experience itself is very different, once you walk in that theater.

SPIELBERG: Well, here’s my debate on that. I’ve always been stingy about the scenes I show in a teaser or a trailer. Because my experience has been — and my kids’ experience has been, ’cause they talk out loud in theaters, like everybody else does today — that if a scene they remember from the trailer hasn’t come on the screen yet, and they’re three quarters of the way through the movie, they start talking. ”Oh — I know what’s gonna happen! Because there was that one little scene they haven’t shown yet in the movie I’m experiencing, and it’s coming up!” And it ruins everything.

A conflict of interest has arisen, because we don’t see ourselves as some sort of great ruiners of cinema. We’re actually pro-cinema and anti-bullshit. That doesn’t mean that Indy IV is either, yet, though we do know boatloads about it.

This is the sort of statement that requires a very clear (and very passionate) response on our end, and that clear response will be right after the jump, which you can access by clicking “Read More…”

Britney is doing better, Paris is f*cking boring, Ashlee Simpson is all knocked up and Amy Winehouse refuses to do anything really interesting.

It’s already been agreed upon that we now need to bring the celebrity gossip gods the head of Miley Cyrus, but we’re unsure how to approach this task.

Mostly because we keep finding stuff online like this video blog presented as a one off, but somehow also involving full scale choreography?

If this is the press we get on Miley Cyrus, it means she’s still in control of her own press.

Which means we have to dig deeper. But, until then, can someone tell us what the hell this video is supposed to be doing/promoting/selling?

We’re confused all over the place with this Teenie Bopper 2.0 marketing.

There is a lot of stuff going on about The Dark Knight right now, two viral games we know of, new sites popping up, the Gotham Knight anime lead-in and FX was all about showing Batman Begins this weekend, causing some of us to squeel like the fanboys we are when a costume Christian Bale first sees The Joker’s “calling card.”

If you don’t know about one or more of the things we just mentioned, “Read More…” and we’ll catch you up on the hostage crisis that Harvey Dent negotiated yesterday, where you can join The Joker’s newest viral campaign, the Gotham Knight preview and more!

The Writers’ Guild hasn’t stopped trying to bring hell to the major studios, cheering on about a dozen workers from American Idol, Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?, and American Inventor as they filed 21 complaints at a California labor office.

The employees allege that they are owed unpaid overtime and subsequent penalties that would total over half-a-million dollars.

TV and animation writers went largely ignored in the WGA strike because of just how nasty it got, but they are consistently the most shat-upon in the industry.

Writes DHD:

The WGA did a study and found that 88% of reality writers work more than 40 hours a week, yet 91% receive no overtime pay. The study also found that 73% of respondents work through their meal break at least once a week. Most of the workers polled did not receive any form of health care or pension benefits. Yet analysts estimate that American Idol has earned over $200 million in profits for the Fox broadcast network.

“Despite the huge profits made by the companies that produce these shows, many of the workers – including writers, production assistants, contestant coordinators, craft services, and office workers – work long hours without receiving overtime compensation or being allowed to take proper breaks,” said a statement by the WGA.

That sounds a lot like this Sunday’s New York Time piece on bloggers.

But don’t worry, we love our bosses.

Not only is the WGA filing labor suits, but is distributing a lengthy press release about Senate Bill 1765, the Fair Market Value Bill. The California State Senate Judiciary Committee passed it today, meaning it will now go before the full California State Senate.

Stick with us, this is dry, but important.

The bill moves to make underselling illegal. Underselling is the practice of selling off a TV show, movie or other property under its “market value” to another subsidiary of your parent company. This is only important because residuals, pension, healthcare and welfare funds are based on the selling price.

Basically, let’s say that my friend and I (pardon our use of the singular, editor gods) make an awesome “I Drink Your Milkshake” t-shirt. We make a run of 100. I tell my friend that I will give him 10% of any profits I make on the t-shirts.

Because my t-shirt is awesome, there is instant demand and our shop (that is only selling one t-shirt at this moment) is filled with people wanting the shirt.

The guy who owns the building next-door is also selling t-shirts, and we went to college together, so I decide to hook him up. Instead of selling 100 t-shirts at $10-a-pop, I give my buddy the 100 shirts for $100 and make him buy me a prostitute.

Now, my original friend just saw his earnings go from $100 to $10 because I sold to someone for my own benefit and under market value.

Make sense?

This is pissing the MPAA off to no end, as it represents the same studios that just went through hell to end the first strike.

They speedily released a statement:

“Though not unexpected, today’s vote by the State Senate Judiciary is regrettable. SB 1765 is an ill-conceived bill that would criminalize legitimate business decisions by producers of movies and TV programs as they seek to generate revenue created for producers and talent alike. Films and television shows would have to be immediately sold to the highest bidder, upending the successful business practices that have made the entertainment industry a vital engine in the California State economy, creating more than half a million jobs and bringing nearly $43 billion of economic activity to the State each year.

“Of equal concern, this bill would essentially force a legislative ‘do-over’ of the collective bargaining agreement that settled the writers’ strike, which cost the California economy $2.5 billion. Writers and producers made an extraordinary effort to reach a fair deal that put an end to that work stoppage. Enabling the Writers Guild to do an end-run around the collective bargaining process would set a dangerous precedent for future labor negotiations.”

So, who is being unfair here?

More importantly, we have yet to see if this really would up-end everything the strike was for in the first place.

Either way, this shit is about to go down, and the WGA refuses to let anyone forget about them.

We spend a lot of time online and as a result have developed a love of online video in all its forms. That’s why we were “into” the WGA Strike and the upcoming SAG negotiations, because the territory of online video content is currently at Wild West fervor.

Time-Warner and Disney are getting in bed together, as evidenced by ESPN video now popping up on AOL’s video services (does this mean more sports from AOL’s celeb-division, TMZ?). The ad revenue will be split by ESPN selling video ads before the clips and AOL reaping the profit from banner ads in the new ESPN embeddable player.

Also now to the video scene is a new arm of music blog Stereogum, aptly titled Videogum. They are run by some very talented New Yorkers, who pointed us in the direction of this Lost re-cap:

We’re just guessing, but we think these guys are going to be more interesting than ESPN on AOL.