British Television Advertising Awards at Yerba Buena

British TV ad awards

The British Television Advertising Awards show was so successful last year that Yerba Buena Center for the Arts will show the 2010 production in its screening room Jan. 27 to 30.

The awards are chosen annually by top advertising executives and producers across the globe, and this year's 80-minute film includes a karaoke party for thousands in Trafalgar Square, a flash-mob dance medley in the Liverpool Street station, and a herd of sheep outfitted with LED lights. For more information, go to ybca.org.

Chronicle Staff Report

'Ghostbusters 3' script

Power up that Proton Pack: "Ghostbusters 3" is closer to becoming a reality. Ivan Reitman, who directed and produced the first two "Ghostbusters" movies, says "a very good script" for the third installment in the comic ghost-hunting tale has been sent to star Bill Murray.

Reitman said that "nothing you've read on the Internet is accurate" and that Murray hasn't yet read the "Ghostbusters 3" script. But the filmmaker is confident about its content, saying "it's good enough to do, to take the risk of doing again."

Los Angeles Times

Download push

When it comes to awards season, Hollywood is incredibly low-tech. Voters watch movies on DVDs hand-delivered to their front doors, actors and filmmakers woo supporters at cocktail parties, and paper ballots are marked with pen and sent in by mail.

Twentieth Century Fox took a bold step to push the industry's annual awards spectacle into the 21st century, announcing that the studio will let members of the Screen Actors Guild download and watch three of its award hopefuls through Apple Inc.'s iTunes.

The move may save the studio as much as $1 million a film in DVD manufacturing and distribution costs to reach SAG's influential membership. But cinematographers and sound designers expressed grave worries over the announcement, fearful that playing movies on small mobile screens will diminish their work.

If the method catches on, it could give an awards boost to films and studios with limited marketing budgets. Because the iTunes technology eliminates time-consuming shipping, it could even help push up the Oscar broadcast by as much as a month.

The studio initially singled out the 93,000 voting members of SAG, who often don't receive the dozens of free DVDs sent to the roughly 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who vote for the Oscars. The largest voting branch in the academy is its actors group - about 1,200 strong - and there is a huge overlap between SAG and the academy.

Starting last week, SAG members can watch "Black Swan," "127 Hours" and "Conviction" via iTunes. They will receive a specific code to download the three films, distributed by the studio's Fox Searchlight division, in high definition, and can watch them on a computer, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch or on television via Apple TV. All three of those films have been nominated for SAG awards (the nominees are chosen by a select 2,500 SAG members). The SAG awards will be handed out on Jan. 30, five days after Oscar nominations are announced.

Los Angeles Times

This article appeared on page E - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle