Warning: There are huge spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen the “Game of Thrones” finale.
In the season five finale of “Game of Thrones,” the often cold, collected, and cutthroat Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) finally had the tables turned on her.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.After being locked away by the leader of the religious Sparrows to answer for former sins, Cersei was allowed to return home to await trial — under a few conditions.
Not only were her long golden locks hastily cut off, but Cersei was then forced to a humiliating nude walk of shame in the streets of King’s Landing. While some may have said the Queen Mother has long had it coming, it was a difficult scene to watch as citizens taunted her on the street and threw miscellaneous food and items onto her naked flesh.
However, the scene nearly didn’t happen, at least not the way we witnessed.
The HBO series films all over the world. While Cersei’s scenes for the season five finale were shot in Croatia, the Croatian film commission had a big issue with the "Game of Thrones" production wanting to film a woman walking the street in the nude.
The scene is supposed to be shot in Dubrovnik, Croatia, where the church has a lot of power and a rigid policy against public displays of sexuality.
We're told the local film commission will not give producers a permit to shoot the scene because they take their cue from the church -- in this case the Church of St. Nicholas.
It’s no secret George R.R. Martin is a student of history—and a well versed one at that.
Echoes of medieval history can be found in nearly every storyline in Game of Thrones, and Cersei Lannister's public humiliation on Sunday was no different. Martin, author of the novels on which the show is based, and the showrunners drew from historic medieval French law and medieval literature to create one of the most gut-wrenching scenes on television.
From echoes of Guinevere’s infamous tryst to codified French law, its roots in history are what make Game of Thrones so compelling. But they're also what make it so frightening. Dr. Larissa Tracy, a medieval literature professor at Longwood University in Virginia, explains how George R.R. Martin and the showrunners drew on history and literature to create Cersei’s punishment.
In medieval France, adultery was punishable by a naked shame walk
A 13th-century French statute in the Costuma d’Agen, the customary laws of the Agen province, lists public humiliation for both the wife and her lover as the appropriate punishment for adultery. The man and the woman were roped together naked and forced to walk through their town preceded by trumpeters for all to see and sometimes even beaten with clubs if they wished.
There were two caveats. First, the witnesses of the adultery had to be beyond reproach—very specifically the local judge and two council members. Second, the punishment was centered on the woman. If a man could escape before or after his arrest, he got off without having to be publicly humiliated—though the woman was still paraded naked behind trumpeters. The same didn’t hold true for a woman, however.
Fate worse than death?
Contrary to popular belief, medieval adulterers were rarely subjected to violent punishments and torture. Instead, by shaming them publicly—like Cersei in Kings Landing—the one thing that gives them standing in the world is destroyed. This concept stems from the idea of fama, Latin for reputation or good name.
The standing of individuals before the law was often based on their reputations, what others thought of them and how they behaved in public. Crimes had an adverse affect on a person’s fama: The Old French customary law, the Coutumes de Beauvaisis (1283), the Etablissements de Saint Louis (1257), the Counseil a un ami (1253) and the Costuma d’Agen (13th century) all address the issue of good name and notoriety as proof of social standing. Those whose fama suffered through a public shaming were no longer deemed honorable members of society.
Cersei’s story echoes the most infamous adulteress in literature: Guinevere
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Like Guinevere, whose disastrous liaison with her husband’s best knight, Lancelot (whose name happens to bear a striking resonance to Lancel Lannister), Cersei will suffer from this spectacle more than she realizes. In various medieval tales, Marie de France’s Lanval, Thomas Chestre’s Sir Launfal and Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, Guinevere faces a number of accusations similar to Cersei’s—mostly murder and adultery.
And, in an interesting coincidence, Lena Headey, who plays Cersei in Game of Thrones, played Guinevere in 1998’s television miniseries Merlin.
The character who is more like Lancelot, though, is Jaime
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.In Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur (1471), Guinevere is found guilty of adultery and treason and sentenced to be executed by public burning. She is saved by her love, Lancelot, who charges in, sword swinging. And though Lancelot ends up becoming a religious hermit like Lancel on Game of Thrones, Jaime is more likely Cersei’s Lancelot. It’s just this type of rescue that she envisions—Jaime charging in at the last moment to save her from public indignity.
But Cersei’s true Lancelot doesn’t arrive.
Dr. Larissa Tracy is an expert in Old and Middle English language and literature, and torture and punishment in literature of the medieval world. She co-directs a research conference in medieval studies and has published extensively on the topic. She has been featured in documentaries for the Discovery Channel and NatGeo, and has lectured internationally.
Business Insider partnered with Prime Visibility, a digital marketing agency with the tools to measure social media mentions, in order to get some insights on Sunday's social activity around the HBO drama.
There was an astounding 697,947 tweets on Sunday about the show. And what's interesting is that "GOT" broke out of its previous m.o. of delivering a striking penultimate episode with a relatively more calm finale. A total of 78.4% of the tweets believed that "GOT" delivered a good finale episode.
In case you were wondering where the most serious "GOT" fans are located: Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. were the most active on social media.
Finally, the five most popular tweets of the night came from two real people and three unofficial "GOT-related" accounts:
Warning: There are huge spoilers ahead for the "Game of Thrones" season 5 finale.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.If you tuned into the season 5 finale of "Game of Thrones," one of the most difficult scenes to watch was Cersei's walk of shame in which she walked nude through the streets of King's Landing to atone for her sins.
For viewers, it was strange to see Cersei look so strikingly different on screen, with short boyish hair and baring it all in such a vulnerable position.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.But why did Cersei's hair need to be chopped off? And was it really necessary to have her walk naked through the streets of King's Landing?
"There are symbolic aspects to the Walk of Atonement or the Walk of Shame," Martin explains. "You're naked. You have nothing to hide. All concealment has been denied you. Your hair has all been shaved off. You're completely vulnerable. There's nothing more to hide ... That's the spiritual justification for this sort of thing."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."People didn't see the kings and their lords very often except when they passed by in their incredibly lavish items," continued Martin. “When you take all of that away from a Queen like Cersei, who, up till then has only been seen by her subjects as this incredibly beautiful woman attended by maids and protected by knights, it’s a way to strip her of all of the power that attends to her majesty.”
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“Cersei is not beloved in the streets of King's Landing. This is a woman who you dare not contradict for she could have your tongue torn out," says Martin. "Now, people are calling her filthy names, and accusations, and they're free to do so. It changes the entire public perception of her, and that is obviously part of the intent."
Last week's 20-second teaser for Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig's Lifetime movie gave a taste of what to expect, but still had us wondering just how serious the movie would be.
Lifetime released a full-length trailer on Monday. The one-minute video gives us a deeper look into the family that welcomes a young pregnant girl, played by "90210's" Jessica Lowndes, into their home with the intention of adopting her baby.Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.But, Ferrell's character just can't seem to avoid noticing her, um, curves as the beautiful house guest as she suns herself in the yard. And, he can't escape her sitting uncomfortably too too close to him on a bench. This, of course, is by design.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Their house guest wants their lush, suburban life and she'll got to great lengths to get it.
How serious are Will Farrell and Kristen Wiig about this Lifetime movie? Deadly serious.
Did we mention it's based on a true story, according to Lifetime?
"Deadly Adoption" airs this Saturday, June 20 at 8 p.m.
David Letterman is living a much simpler life after saying goodbye to his late-night show last month. But that doesn't mean that getting accustomed to normal life has been a smooth transition.
The former host gave his first post-retirement interview to his local magazine, Indianapolis Monthly.
In the interview, he revealed that two of his assistants have stayed on with him for good reason.
"As it turns out, after all these years of having someone make my calls for me, I can no longer operate a telephone," he revealed to the magazine, after explaining that when he first started doing late-night his manager insisted Letterman get an assistant to answer his phones.
That's not the only thing that takes getting used to for the 68-year-old comedian.
"I don’t know what to do with my hair, either," he said. "But I’ll never wear makeup again, so that’s no problem."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.That said, Letterman is nothing if not self-reflective. He knows what he sounds like and welcomes the ribbing.
"It’s stunning what you find out about yourself when everything you’ve done for 33 years changes," he said. "It’s like ice melting out from under you. I know that regular, responsible people probably hear me whining like this and think, 'Oh, brother.' But I’m trying to rehabilitate myself, so keep me in your thoughts and prayers."
On the bright side, he does seem to keep track of life around town and gets to spend more time with his 11-year-old son, something he had said he wanted to do more of after retirement.
"I love fishing with my son, " he said. "Any kind of trout fishing where you can stand in the river is just delightful. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I can stand in the river. I’m pretty good at that. And isn’t that 90 percent of it?"
In the article, Letterman revealed that he had a particularly tough time interviewing two guests: singer-songwriter Warren Zevon and former President Bill Clinton.
Letterman said he was "anxious" to interview Zevon because he wasn't sure how to address the singer's terminal illness.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."Warren Zevon was on years ago, and we all knew he was dying," Letterman said in the interview. "I was at a loss because I couldn’t think of an entry point for a conversation with a dying man on a television show that’s supposed to be silly. 'How are you doing? You look great!' doesn’t exactly work. I was really dissatisfied with my part of that conversation. I was ill-equipped to connect with a friend who was going through something like that."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Interviewing Bill Clinton for the first time, however, Letterman said he was "anxious for totally different reasons."
"Of course, what I learned about Bill was that you don’t even need to be in the studio for that interview. He’ll take care of it," Letterman said about the famous orator and former president.
Clinton would go on to make nine other appearances on Letterman's show. Their tenth and final interview took place during Letterman's penultimate week as host of "The Late Show," where Clinton joked that there's a 100% chance he'll move back to the White House if his wife, Hillary Clinton, wins the presidential election.
For over three decades, Sheila Nevins has been at the forefront of delivering documentary films into our living rooms as the head of HBO Documentary Films.
Whether it be a hot-button issue like the fight to get the West Memphis Three off death row (as the “Paradise Lost” films help made possible), or a risqué look into our primal instincts (the late 1990s series “Taxicab Confessions”), Nevins has spent her career making audiences realize that nonfiction programming can be just as fulfilling than any scripted show on television.
Nothing better solidifies that notion than the recent success seen by HBO documentaries greenlit by Nevins.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.That was on the heels of director Andrew Jarecki’s investigation of reclusive millionaire Robert Durst in the docu mini-series, “The Jinx.”
The series grabbed headlines when it concluded with Durst, who's linked to three killings spanning four decades, supposedly admitted to committing the murders following his final interview with Jarecki when talking to himself while using the bathroom.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Then in May, the documentary by Brett Morgen (“The Kid Stays In The Picture”), “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck,” wowed audiences with its animation-infused look at the troubled life of the Nirvana frontman.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. But Nevins isn't getting too excited about all of the recent attention on her HBO documentaries.
“Stick around three or four months and tell me if docus are still hot,” Nevins recently told Business Insider in her corner office in midtown Manhattan.
Despite the whopping 27 Primetime Emmy Awards Nevins has received at HBO, she still can’t forget the documentaries that were ratings duds.
Born and raised in Manhattan, Nevins received her MFA at the Yale School of Drama with aspirations to have a career in theater. But after getting married and having a family, she began work behind the camera producing man on the street interviews in the early '70s. That led to her having stints as a producer at ABC and CBS. Then, in 1979, she became the director of documentaries at HBO. In 2004, she earned the title as president of HBO Documentary Films.
When Nevins first started her career, the type of documentaries being made were primarily in the talking head style you’d find on PBS, or played in schools.
The breakthrough for Nevins came when she realized that regular people had the potential to be showcased in astonishing ways.
“I'm a great believer in the anonymity of the documentary subject,” she explained. “I think the stories of ordinary people are much more interesting because they are extraordinary. Fame tends to repeat itself. Someone's famous because they wear certain clothing or are famous because they've been in something or famous because of their political views. They just kind of regurgitate the same philosophy. It's interesting, but it doesn't require discovery in the same way that anonymity does.”
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.So she began green-lighting films that had a movie-like feel and looked at the human condition and social issues, like the 1996 Emmy-winning “One Survivor Remembers,” a short that recounts a Holocaust survivor’s six-year survival of Nazi abuse.
She also took stories ripped from the headlines, like getting then-unknown filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky to travel to Arkansas and look into a story she read about the alleged murders of three children at the hands of three teens. From that, the seminal doc “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills” was born, showing that in all likelihood the teens did not commit the crime. This launched the 11-year crusade to free the teen murder suspects (which inevitably happened in 2007), from then on to be known as the West Memphis Three.
The blueprint of the stories Nevins wants to tell hasn’t changed much over the years. She still searches through The New York Times for stories that need deeper exploration, her team brings her ideas, and filmmakers with a relationship at HBO pitch her.
She says what makes the best films are the ones “you’re just busting with a desire to tell a story and find out more about it.”
When we talked to Nevins a few weeks ago, it was the day after the crash of an Amtrak train in Philadelphia. It was the lead story on all the morning news shows, but she didn’t see a story there to tell as an HBO doc. However, something like law enforcement’s handling of the capture of those responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing still fascinates her.
“That’s what makes the job so interesting,” Nevins said. “It’s always different.”
What has changed drastically is the prestige a film has by including the HBO Documentary Films logo, and Nevins name, attached to it. It's something Nevins takes very seriously.
“I don’t take [credit] unless there’s some sort of authorship because I would be embarrassed to ask for it,” she said.
In fact, it took some time after being at HBO for Nevins to realize that her name should be on the works she develops there. It was a chance encounter with “60 Minutes” creator and her mentor Don Hewitt at a department store that made her realize how important it was.
“He said, ‘What do you do at [HBO]?’” Nevins recalls. “I said, ‘Well, people pitch to us and sometimes we have the ideas.’ He said, ‘Like an executive producer?’ He then said, ‘You should get credit, what if they go out of business?’ So the next time it came to renewing my contract I said ‘I want credit on my shows.’”
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Nevins sees her contribution as telling the filmmaker when she doesn’t understand something.
Gibney’s narration on “Going Clear” happened because Nevins couldn’t understand what was happening when watching portions of the film he sent her to look at, so she suggested he narrate it.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“For a change, I was going to go without narration,” Gibney told BI via email. “Sheila was right. Narrating allowed me to be more efficient.”
“I’ve been doing this for a long time and what I'm good at is not understanding something,” said Nevins with a laugh.
To find that clarity, Nevins has to be fully engrossed in watching what the filmmakers send her. And in an era when everyone is on their phones or multi-tasking on three different screens at once, it’s shocking to walk into Nevins' office to find no desk or computer in sight. Just couches and a small coffee table in the center of the room.
Nevins says she owes HBO subscribers works that have had her full attention.
“They are paying to watch,” she said. “I think on their behalf.”
To accomplish that, Nevins doesn't even take notes when looking at the rough cuts filmmakers send her.
“I’ve never taken a note about films,” she said. “I can't watch, think, and write at the same time. I can watch, think, and remember.”
It’s a process that director Shari Cookson knows very well. She came up in the business by producing and directing HBO docs for Nevins in the '90s.
“Sometimes she’ll watch the film ahead of time so she’ll have a sense of it when the filmmakers are there,” Cookson told BI about Nevins’ feedback sans notes. “She just stops [the film] and says how she feels. By the end she knows the film pretty intimately.”
On June 22, HBO will air Cookson’s latest doc, “Requiem for the Dead: American Spring 2014,” which looks at the lives affected by gun-related deaths that occurred last spring. It was a project that Nevins sent out to Cookson and co-director Nick Doob to make. But the filmmakers wanted to tell it a different way, using only what the victims left behind on their social media to tell their stories. It was an unorthodox method, but Nevins instantly responded.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.It's that kind of trust Nevins has in her filmmakers that Cookson says sets her apart from other executives in the business.
“She really has her whole heart and soul into the stories that are being told on her network,” Cookson said. “She really lives it and she lives it with you and gives you the freedom to do your best work.”
That commitment to her projects has also brought a streak of competitiveness in Nevins as more networks have created documentary programming over the years.
“I mean, everybody wants to be HBO,” she said. “I'm deeply competitive. I want it if it's good and I want it on HBO. Even if nobody recognizes it. If it's good, if it's excellent, if it's quality, I don't want it somewhere else.”
One project that Nevins still regrets slipped through her fingers is the 2011 Oscar-nominated “Restrepo,” which looked at a year in the life of a platoon stationed in one of the most deadly locations in Afghanistan.
“’Restrepo’ eats away at me,” Nevins said. “It pissed me off that I didn’t see it as being successful. I was more careful the next time about choosing a war story.”
That next time would be her executive producing the documentary short “Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1,” which looks at a trauma hotline for military veterans.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The film won Best Documentary – Short Subject at this year’s Academy Awards.
“Crisis Hotline” may have settled her frustration in missing out on “Restrepo,” but she’s certain there are dozens of other things she can use as motivation to stay on top of the documentary mountain.
“I'm the victim of my own philosophy,” she said. “I always think tomorrow is going to be worse or better but never the same. And these stories are about worse or better. I like that storytelling, and I believe it.”
While the number of characters recently fell on Sunday's "Game of Thrones" season finale, the ratings numbers are actually at their highest.
The Season 5 finale was watched by a tremendous 8.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen's live plus same day numbers.
That means the HBO drama scored its largest audience ever. Previously, "GOT's" fifth season premiere held the record with an even 8 million viewers.
Furthermore, Sunday's finale beat last year's season-ender by about a million viewers, an increase of 14.4%. The Season 4 finale was watched by 7.1 million viewers.
For Sunday, "Game of Thrones" was the No. 1 most-watched show of the night.
"GOT" and AMC's "The Walking Dead," which just netted 15.8 million viewers for its sixth season finale, are proving that genre shows can grow beyond small niche audiences.
For most of his career Vince Vaughn has made us laugh. But in season two of HBO's “True Detective,” we see a different side of the actor and the change up comes at a perfect time in his career.
In “True Detective,” Vaughn plays Frank Semyon, a shady businessman who intends to go on the straight-and-narrow (or so we think) with his plan to create a high-speed rail system through California. However, when his legitimate business partner is viciously murdered, Semyon has to return to his dark past to find out who killed him.
The move to TV comes when Vaughn has hit a speed bump in his movie career.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.But Vaughn in “True Detective” is dark, twisted, and has the perfect delivery to play a tough-guy villain. This shouldn’t be much of a surprise for Vaughn fans who love watching him play the dickish, short-tempered friend in films like in “Swingers” and “Made.” He's also played the “bad guy” in “Anchorman” (and its sequel) and “Starsky & Hutch.”
If you dig deeper into his filmography, you may recall Vaughn's forgettable evil performances as Norman Bates in the Gus Van Sant 1998 shot-for-shot remake of “Psycho” and a step father in 2001’s “Domestic Disturbance.”
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.But the difference with “True Detective” is that he’s coming into a popular show known for having incredible performances. Both Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson were nominated for Emmys for their starring roles in season one.
Vaughn has big shoes to fill. For season two, show creator Nic Pizzolatto needed an actor who could pull off playing a character full of complexities in his personal life and profession, but also be able to hold his own opposite co-stars Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, and Taylor Kitsch (all playing police officers).
It turns out, Vaughn was the perfect choice.
The actor uses his dry whit to deliver on-the-mark sarcastic replies when talking to his underlings (not to mention great stare-downs with Farrell), and wows in one of the most chilling moments so far at the beginning of the second episode.
While laying in bed looking up at a water stain on his ceiling, his Semyon character gives a two-minute plus monologue on how the stain reminds him about his childhood abuse from his father.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The chocked-up whisper and tearing up as he recounts the horrific episode from his youth as the camera looks down on him from the ceiling is up there as one of the best performances Vaughn has ever given.
The scene leaves the viewer with the notion that Semyon is completely twisted and as the episodes progress his actions only confirm that.
It’s hard to say if we have a “McConaissance” building for Vaughn (the term used for season one star Matthew McConaughey’s recent evolution from relationship comedy stud to Oscar winner). But to see Vaughn shine in a role like this should make his fans optimistic that the actor is turning a corner in his career.
Season two of “True Detective” begins June 21 on HBO.
It's always risky to take a show off-air in the middle of the season -- even if it is just for one week.
Fox is taking that chance with its event series "Wayward Pines," which just gave viewers tons of answers to the show's mysteries on Episode 5 last week and then took this week off from airing.
The network and executive producer M. Knight Shyamalan are hoping that the break in action will actually increase the show's audience next week based on strong social media interaction and word of mouth.
"For me," Shyamalan said on a press call on Friday, "to some extent, the way we structured even the airing of the episodes so that there was a break right here after Episode 5 was with the hope that at this point — we didn’t know whether we would have a fan base that would talk and spend time and try to tell everybody — the strategic intent was to give it a little break after this, as we get to the last five, to get everybody to get caught up."
The "Sixth Sense" director said he understands why viewers may want to wait before jumping on to a new show.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."I’m a lazy viewer so you need to tell me 20 times that 'Game of Thrones' is great before I watch it," he said. "It’s literally like that, and then I watch it, or 'Breaking Bad' and then I watch it. I’m like, 'I’m not going to watch it unless I know it’s great.' I’m hoping that the fans that have been growing, that they can tell a lot of people."
There's some reason to believe that the plan will work. "Wayward Pines" has seen good increases in delayed viewing. The audience for last Thursday's pivotal episode grew 67% over three days in the advertiser-coveted adults, aged 18-49-year-old audience, according to Nielsen Ratings.
It also ranks as summer's No. 1-rated entertainment program, which doesn't include sports programs.
Viewers can watch the first five episodes of the season on On Demand, Fox On Demand or on Hulu.
For over 30 years, HBO Documentary Films president Sheila Nevins has found compelling ways to make us want to watch non-fiction films.
Though documentaries are more popular than ever, the way Nevins finds the stories hasn’t changed much over the years.
She still searches through The New York Times for stories that need deeper exploration, her team brings her ideas, and filmmakers with a relationship at HBO pitch her.
She recently told Business Insider that what makes the best films are the ones “you’re just busting with a desire to tell a story and find out more about it.”
When BI spoke with Nevins the day after the Amktrak crash in Philadelphia, she didn’t see a story there to tell as an HBO doc. However, something like law enforcement’s handling of the capture of those responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing still fascinates her.
“That’s what makes the job so interesting,” said Nevins. “It’s always different.”
“I'm a great believer in the anonymity of the documentary subject,” she added. “I think the stories of ordinary people are much more interesting because they are extraordinary. Fame tends to repeat itself. Someone's famous because they wear certain clothing or are famous because they've been in something or famous because of their political views. They just kind of regurgitate the same philosophy. It's interesting, but it doesn't require discovery in the same way that anonymity does.”
For the latest HBO documentary, "Requiem for the Dead: American Spring 2014" (airing June 22), the idea in how to tell the story of gun violence in America was very different. The film’s directors Shari Cookson and Nick Doob told Nevins they wanted to make the whole film out of the social media posts the victims made before they died. Nevins said yes without hesitation.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“There’s not one bit of original filming in it,” said Nevins of the film. “So it’s America on its own without any creative engagement. I think it’s one of the best documentaries we’ve done.”
But there are some projects Nevins passed on that still keep her up at night. Particularly the 2011 Oscar-nominated “Restrepo,” which looked at a year in the life of a platoon stationed in one of the most deadly locations in Afghanistan.
“’Restrepo’ eats away at me,” said Nevins. “It pissed me off that I didn’t see it as being successful. I was more careful the next time about choosing a war story.”
That next time would be her executive producing the documentary short “Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1,” which looks at a unique service that supports the traumas our military veterans suffer.
The film won best documentary short at this year’s Academy Awards.
It was clear to anyone who watched Donald Trump's presidential-campaign announcement on Tuesday that the roughly 45-minute speech would become fodder for late-night TV.
Many of the hosts had a lot of fun with the many subjects Trump covered in his speech.
Jimmy Kimmel can already see Trump's winning slogan:
On ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," the host described Trump as "a president and an amusement park all rolled into one."
He could already see that Trump ended his speech having conveyed a winning message: "The American dream is dead."
"It's not exactly hope and change, but it's a slogan, a catchy slogan," Kimmel said as a bumper sticker with the phrase appeared on-screen.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Jimmy Fallon needs a translator:
On NBC's "Tonight Show," Fallon summed up Trump's speech with a comparison: "Hillary would be our first female president, and Trump would be our first 'Mad Libs' president." He didn't spend a lot of time on Trump, as it may have been disrespectful to the night's big guest, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush.
Other late-night hosts, though, felt as if Trump's speech called for some high-production skits.
James Corden was stumped:
CBS' "The Late Late Show With James Corden" featured a game called "Trump Stumpers." The contestants had to guess whether a phrase was actually said by Trump during his speech. It wasn't too hard a game, because — spoiler alert! — every phrase was in Trump's speech.
Jon Stewart is letting Trump write his last jokes:
Stewart was especially pleased about Trump's speech, which the "Daily Show" host characterized as "over half an hour of the most beautifully ridiculous jibber-jabber." For the soon-to-be-departing host, it was an embarrassment of riches.
"Thank you. Thank you, Donald Trump, for making my last six weeks my best six weeks," Stewart said. "He is putting me in some kind of comedy hospice where I'm getting just straight morphine."
Even Colbert, who won't be taking the reins of CBS' "Late Show" until September 8, couldn't let this opportunity pass him by. With his best Trump hair, he did a great imitation of the real-estate mogul's speech.
Members of the streaming video service were alerted to the change via an email this week with the subject: "Just call us Hulu! (Not Hulu Plus)."
Here's the one I received:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Hulu actually first announced the name change during its upfront presentation to advertisers in April, but that's a select audience and the change became official this week.
But before we go into the company's reasons for the name change, let's revisit the birth of Hulu Plus.
Previously supported by just advertising, Hulu Plus was born out of a desire to offer a paid subscription service and generate new revenue. Although Hulu Plus still included commercials, members had access to a larger amount of the service's library.
So, why would Hulu decide to drop the "Plus"?
While a Hulu representative declined to comment for this article, a staffer with knowledge of the decision spoke to Business Insider on the condition of anonymity.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.That individual said the decision was certainly backed by research and primarily driven to "make marketing more effective." Both the free and paid services will continue, but "this change will help us to focus on one Hulu brand, allowing more growth for the company overall by bringing in a clearer message to consumers."
"When you add a new brand, you have to spend money explaining the difference between the brands," Brand Identity's founder and chief strategy officer, Chad Kawalec, told BI. "I'm sure they figured out that having to continue to educate people on what the 'Plus' meant was more expensive than simply removing it."
Kawalec also said that in the years since Hulu Plus was created, most consumers have realized that there is almost always a way to upgrade to a higher tier service, something Hulu probably also realized.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."All business models, including the airlines, your cable, the telephone, and in apps have an easy way to get in and then they offer upgrades," Kawalec said. "For Hulu, that means they can present a Hulu base membership and then the higher tier paid subscription."
Hulu's name change could be leading the way. Kawalec believes that Amazon, which needed to market and differentiate its own streaming service, Amazon Prime, from its retail services, will go a similar route to Hulu in the future.
"I have a feeling that they're going to end up in the same position where it's just Amazon," he said. "They've had to spend a lot of money to educate people on what you get with Prime. Have you been on the site? It's constant. All of their energy goes into that instead of talking about the Amazon brand."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“I never thought it would be sensational,” Nevins told Business Insider.
Before Gibney went to her, Nevins said she had never considered doing a film on the religion. She gave the go-ahead because she had confidence that the Oscar-winning Gibney ("Taxi to the Dark Side," 2007) could pull off a great adaptation of best-selling author Lawrence Wright’s book on the church, “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief.”
Nevins remembers the exact moment when she realized “Going Clear” was going to be a huge hit. “When I saw my name in a full page ad in The New York Times, I knew,” she said. “Docs don’t get full page ads, and when they do, they do really well.”
Nevins is referring to the ad that Scientology ran in The Times weeks before the film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
The ad compared “Going Clear” to the now infamous Rolling Stone story on campus rape at the University of Virginia, which turned out to be full of false claims. The headline in the ad read, “Is Alex Gibney’s Upcoming HBO ‘Documentary’ a Rolling Stone/UVA Redux?”
The ad then went on to outline numerous instances in which the church believed “Going Clear” was not factually correct.
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It also stated: “Mr. Gibney and HBO documentary chief Sheila Nevins have rejected multiple requests to meet with executives of the Church, including those with individual firsthand information.”
“I thought, ‘They really don’t want us to do it,’” said Nevins. “All the reason more to do it.”
Nevins told The Hollywood Reporter months before the film premiered at Sundance that “probably 160 lawyers” were vetting the film.
Gibney told Business Insider by email that the legal process with HBO was “tough but fair,” and he couldn’t have imagined bringing the project anywhere else other than to HBO.
“They were fearless and supportive,” he wrote. “Sheila and HBO backed me up against the attacks we knew were coming and promoted the hell out of the movie.”
Thinking back on the whole ordeal, Nevins still can’t believe the church was so aggressive in trying to bash “Going Clear.”
“Scientology did their own commercial for us,” she said. “Going Clear” had its premiere airing on HBO in March and became the second most-watched documentary on the network in the past decade.
USA Network is embarking on one of its most ambitious marketing efforts in support of its upcoming new series, "Mr. Robot."
The cable network has partnered with social video and popular gamer community, Twitch, and the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) for a campaign that will erase $100,00o in consumer debt over 72 hours.
"Come Thursday through Saturday we are messaging, fulfilling, engaging, all of it in real time, and so I would say to that end, we’ve never done anything of this magnitude," USA's marketing and digital executive vice president, Alexandra Shapiro, told Business Insider. "There’s so many moving parts that are going to be key to the success of this promotion."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The "hacktivation," as USA refers to it, was inspired by Christian Slater's mysterious hacker character on "Mr. Robot," who hopes to free Americans from the oppression of debt.
USA identified gamers aka people obsessed with video games as a natural fit for the series. It screened the "Mr. Robot" pilot over Twitch in late-May with nearly 250,000 people who started watching the episode.
It then decided to follow up on those gamer relationships at E3 with Twitch, the conference's official live stream partner. At any point in time, there could be 400,000 people concurrently watching the stream.
"There’s probably no other promotion where you can get that many people at the same time looking at the same thing," Shapiro explained. "And so when they, both E3 and Twitch, were open to the idea of custom creating a 'Mr. Robot' promotion, it was just as though the stars were aligned."
After several teases, see above, over the past two days from the show's fictional hacker group fsociety, the campaign starts in earnest Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET when Twitch users can visit twitch.tv/whoismrrobot to watch a three hour livestream. Every 30 minutes, a code will be given out that can be used to win a chance at the monetary prizes. Up to 50 winners will be selected every half hour for the opportunity of an instant payout between $10 to $5,000.
But, non-Twitch members will also get their chance to win a debt payout on June 19 and 20 when two 6-hour live streams will be available from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. ET on whoismrrobot.com.
"So I think our first line of engagement will be these Twitch users," Shapiro said. "We’re going to use all the social engagement we’ve created to date, the database, the users that have registered on whoismrrobot.com, and then other social media in order to cast an even a wider net, and I think it's going to be really interesting is to see how the engagement changes over the days, the profile of the people who are participating. I think that will be as empowering and interesting a story as maybe the event itself."
The network's hope is that the people who participated in the early screening and the debt hacktivation will show up for the show's actual TV run beginning June 24 on USA, which will also be accompanied by another round of payouts surrounding the premiere.
In the end, the campaign hopes to reach millennials, which has become the largest group of the network's target audience of Adults 18-49 years old.
"They’re the largest generation in history, and they demand storytelling to be done in a really different way," Shapiro said. "And I think the reason people responded so positively to 'Mr. Robot' is its timely themes, but the unique creative execution and showrunner Sam Esmail’s vision."
As "Game of Thrones" concluded its season last Sunday, did you find yourself wishing it had more than 10 episodes? Sure, but that's HBO for you.
Well, have you realized that Fox's "Wayward Pines" is already halfway through its season after just five episodes? Or, could you have used more Ryan Phillippe after ABC's "Secrets and Lies" wrapped its first season after just 10 episodes? Did you know that Fox's hotly anticipated "X-Files" revival will be just six episodes long?
Get used to it. TV networks are going the way of cable and have been ordering increasingly shorter seasons.
Here are five reasons the TV networks are moving toward shorter seasons:
1.) Star power.
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With hundreds of cable channels now working in the original series space, networks have to find ways to snatch back some of the spotlight. One tried and true way to do this is to attract big stars, which usually means movie stars.
Viola Davis is currently a hot topic when it comes to Emmys and was the face of ABC's newest and hottest Shonda Rhimes show last season, "How to Get Away With Murder." Yet, Davis wasn't about to sign on for anything more than 15 episodes, seven less than network TV's typical 22-episode order. She isn't the only one to put her foot down.
Clearly, Fox would've loved to have as many episodes as possible of its breakout hit, "Empire." But, co-creators Lee Daniels and Danny Strong felt they wanted to do a short, tight season of 12 episodes. That said, Fox was able to convince them to do 18 episodes for Season 2 -- with a break halfway through.
2.) Storytelling can be more dramatic and focused.
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Have you ever been so obsessed with a story line only to have the show barely address it for a full episode? Or was there a time when you wished a bothersome B-story would just end already? These can be the side effects of a traditional 22-episode season.
Actors, writers and producers seem to agree that storytelling can be more focused and deeper when presented over a shorter season.
"I think you can attract the talent you want by having a shorter season and you can tell more interesting stories,""X-Files" star David Duchovny told Variety. "I would never have gone and done another 22 episodes of ‘X-Files,’ but we’re going to do six — well, that’s like doing a movie. That’s like continuing the show in a way that we all can do at this point in our lives so that’s it all came about.”
3.) The syndication model has changed.
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One of the ways producers hope to make more money on shows is to get repeats shown, which is called syndication. Even 10 years ago, the goal was to get series to at least 100 episodes (or roughly five seasons) in order to then sell them for syndication. But, that's all changed.
Streaming sites like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu don't care how many episodes a show has. They just want content to offer their subscribers. And a full season -- whether it's 10 or 22 episodes -- is an opportunity for their subscribers to binge watch.
"Obviously, there’s still an incentive to find big hits that produced 100 or more episodes — the next generation of 'Law & Order' or 'Modern Family,' AMC and Sundance TV's president and general manager, Charlie Collier, told Vulture. "But streaming economics mean it’s possible to make money on shows with lower episode counts."
4.) Year-round programming.
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In a way, networks are using a hybrid of their own 22-episode tradition and cable's shorter seasons to provide year-round programming. Networks realized that they were handing viewers over to cable when their shows went into reruns during the winter and summer hiatuses.
So, ABC, for example, can fill in an eight-week hiatus of "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD" with an eight-episode run of "Marvel's Agent Carter" and retain the viewers (and charge more for advertising), which it would have lost to other networks during that break.
5.) Shorter seasons help to prevent fatigue.
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TV shooting schedules can be very tiring. For producers, writers and lead actors who have to be in most scenes, 22 episodes can create fatigue with their long days, frequent evening shoots and fast script or edit turnarounds.
Early in "Empire's" production, Lee Daniels told TheWrap a story of how Oprah Winfrey warned him that he wouldn't be able to last in TV. "She’s right," he said. "I did two episodes and it’s rough.”
Earlier this month, NBC’s ProFootballTalk revealed that the NFL team uniforms featured in Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s upcoming HBO show “Ballers” are used without the consent of the league.
HBO’s reply to the story, and Business Insider, was that "HBO is always mindful of other intellectual property owners, but in this context there is no legal requirement to obtain their consent.”
It turns out that is 100% true, according to a prominent entertainment lawyer.
After speaking to entertainment lawyer Michael C. Donaldson, who has over 30 years of experience in copyright and entertainment issues, BI learned that as long as the use of the NFL trademark and team logos are used as it was intended to be used, and do not disparage or tarnish it, there is no need to ask for permission.
“[The NFL] brow beat a lot of people into paying fees that don’t have to be paid,” Donaldson told BI. “They extract those fees from filmmakers who are either nervous or not completely aware of their rights under the law.”
Donaldson gives this example in how to understand trademark law:
“It’s alright to say, ‘This Coca-Cola takes awful.’ You can say, ‘I hate Coca-Cola.’ What you can’t say is something that misrepresents it, such as you drink a Coke and you drop dead and someone says, ‘That happens all the time.’”
What causes the confusion, according to Donaldson, is what goes on at the networks. Because they air NFL games they have broadcast rights. You may notice the disclaimer during games that say in part, “…any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited.”
“So people think, ‘Oh, the networks pay for the use of logos, obviously I have to,” Donaldson said.
That is completely different from trademark rights.
In the opening scene of "Ballers" we see Johnson’s character, Spencer Strassmore, having flashbacks from his days on the gridiron as a Miami Dolphin. He’s wearing a Dolphin’s uniform with its logo in plain view. He’s chasing down a Buffalo Bill quarterback, his helmet logo also clearly visible.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Donaldson said what the show is depicting is completely legal.
According to Donaldson’s partner at his practice, Chris Perez, the show can go even further and the NFL could still not have a case.
“One thing that we can say for sure about players in the NFL in the last few years is that fights happen on the field every so often and then they get broken up by referees or coaches," said Perez. “Players have engaged in domestic violence and then convicted of that, and NFL players have committed murder. So you can create a show that uses NFL logos and create a fiction situation where all of those things happen.”
Later in that episode, the show does depict a player in a negative light. Star receiver for the Green Bay Packers, Ricky Jarret (John David Washington), gets into an altercation with another man at a night club and beats him to the ground in front of everyone.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Though the NFL won’t like that scene, Perez says the show is within its right to have a scene like that.
“Where you can get into trouble,” Perez said, “is portraying how the NFL reacts to it. The response has to be consistent to how the NFL would react in real life.”
According to Donaldson, if there were a scene where someone playing the NFL commissioner held a press conference saying that the NFL wants their players to get into fights at bars, the show would “get into big trouble.”
Jarret's actions in the episode do not go unpunished. Following the altercation he is cut from the team (with the Packers logo in full view, we see the GM say “cut him.”).
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.HBO Documentary Films president Sheila Nevins makes a living telling compelling stories. When Business Insider recently interviewed Nevins at her office in Manhattan, we got to hear a few good tales from her illustrious career, including a never-been-told story about the late James Gandolfini.
Nevins once accompanied Gandolfini as he visited injured military staying at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland. At the time, “The Sopranos” actor had recently starred in and produced the HBO documentary about soldiers returning home from war, “Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq.”
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“His heart was in the suffering of guys coming home,” Nevins said of Gandolfini. “I don't know why, I never got a chance to ask him why because we were too busy doing shows, but he truly cared about these guys.”
Nevins and Gandolfini were prepping another PTSD-related project at the time when they visited Walter Reed. Inevitably, the project would get scrapped due to the 2007 scandal at the medical center regarding the neglect of patients by the staff, which occurred soon after their visit.
However, the experience would be one Nevins would never forget.
Here’s her recollection of Gandolfini visiting patients on the traumatic brain injury ward:
“Jim came down to Washington and we went on a tour of the floor. We went in and out of rooms. He was a real celebrity, he signed stuff, he was a very good sport about it. And then we went into a room where there was a guy who had half a head and his mother was reading the Bible and sitting there and she said, ‘Oh, my son loves you, he thinks you're the best, he just loves everything you do.’ She said, ‘Talk to him, tell him to get better.’ It was clear this kid was not going to get better. He wasn't there. And Jim talked and said ‘You get better, your mother is really reading to you and loves you and you're a great hero,’ and she said, ‘No, not that way, really talk like you are.’ Meaning Tony Soprano. So he said, ‘Listen you mother f-----g piece of s--t, you get your f-----g act together. You don't let your mother suffer after all she gave you, you piece of s--t.’ And the mother said, ‘Oh thank you, thank you.’”
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“And Jim signs the Bible, or whatever she was reading, and he walks out of the room and just bursts into tears.”
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Though the Walter Reed project never came together, Nevins said she and Gandolfini were working on a documentary focused on prisoners with learning disabilities when he suddenly died of a heart attack in June of 2013.
But Nevins will never forget Gandolfini’s appreciation for those who serve our country.
“His heart was in these wounded guys," Nevins said. "I don't know why, but he felt like one of them.”
For those who miss the champagne popping, hot girl gawking, throw money at the most ridiculous luxury items imaginable antics of the “Entourage” gang, then get ready for “Ballers.”
Premiering on HBO this Sunday, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stars as Spencer Strassmore, a retired NFL star who has transitioned into a second career as a financial advisor for current players.
The authenticity is striking from the get go. Strassmore wakes up having visions of his glory days on the field and immediately grabs painkillers that he pops like tic tacs.
Judging by the first episode, it's likely we'll see more situations in which Strassmore must deal with ailments from his playing days.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The show portrays how fleeting a pro football career can be. Though Strassmore is one of the few to find a good job that keeps him close to the game after hanging up his cleats, we also see the other side of the spectrum from his friend Charles Greane (Omar Benson Miller), who, now retired, has to find work selling cars to make ends meet.
Along with giving the viewer the harsh realities of life after the game, we see through Strassmore the current stars who are making the mistakes he did when he first became a pro.
This is where Strassmore steps in.
Through the prodding of his boss Joe (Rob Corddry, who is perfect in the role), Strassmore uses his friendships to build his client base.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.He has Ricky Jerret (John David Washington), a brash receiver who gets cut from the Green Bay Packers after getting into a fight at a night club. And Vernon (Donovan W. Carter), a game changer at the defensive line who has brought the whole projects out with him to Miami since signing his big contract from the Dallas Cowboys. Strassmore sees Vernon is in need, but getting Vernon to split from his family and friends (who are bleeding him dry) is going to be a challenge.
Like “Entourage,” the show is done in a comedic style playing on the sport’s absurdities. In one scene during the first episode, real NFL star running-back Steven Jackson boasts to have recently bought an elephant.
And it shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering “Entourage” creators Mark Wahlberg, Rob Weiss, and Stephen Levinson are executive producers on “Ballers.”
But the glue that holds the show together is definitely The Rock. In his first attempt at television, Johnson (also an executive producer) has incredible presence playing someone who still hungers to be in the football culture, but has to in some ways “use his friends” to stay in it.
To do that, he plays a much more gentle, soft spoken character in tailored suits. A far cry from the roles he’s done to make him one of today's most bankable action stars. And though it's not likely he’ll be giving anyone body slams on this show, don’t be shocked if he has to get a little physical to get his point across.
After being locked away by the leader of the religious Sparrows to answer for former sins, Cersei was allowed to return home to await trial — under a few conditions. 
