How many shots are in the average movie today?

stephenfollows.com: Last night I had the absolute pleasure of watching American Graffiti (1973) at the ActOne Cinema in Acton, and then listening to Mark Kermode quiz Walter Murch about how he built its sound. Murch edited Apocalypse Now and The English Patient, and he wrote In the Blink of an Eye, which is probably the best book there is on film editing.

Immersive Displays: ClearLED Powers 360° Research Environment In Bristol

invidis: The University of Bristol’s Digital Futures Institute (BDFI) has installed a custom 360-degree LED display as part of its Reality Emulator, an immersive research environment designed to visualize complex datasets, simulations and virtual worlds.

What Is Non-Literal Casting, and When Is It Okay?

AMERICAN THEATRE: A central idea we’ve found ourselves contemplating at Cherry is that of authenticity. Alongside the three pillars—diversity, equity, and inclusion—that organizations throughout our society are working (with varying degrees of real commitment) to adopt, the casting world often adds “authenticity” as a fourth. (The website of the U.S.’s most significant casting service leads with “Breakdown Services champions authenticity and diversity in casting.”)

'Verity' Costume Designer on Dakota Johnson & Anne Hathaway Looks

Marie Claire: Verity, the Amazon MGM Studios adaptation of Colleen Hoover's popular psychological thriller, became a fashion film the moment that Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson joined the cast as Verity and Lowen, respectively. Costume designer Jacqueline Demeterio used that to her advantage.

Three Dramatic Writing Alumni with Pittsburgh Productions

CMU Drama: This season, three alumni of the School of Drama’s Dramatic Writing program are returning to Pittsburgh with productions at three different professional theater companies, bringing their distinctive voices, creative vision, and years of professional experience back to the city where their journeys began.

When Will Women of Color in Leadership Be Enough for the Theater Community?

kaylakimvotapek.substack.com: It has officially been one year since I stepped into my first-ever role as an Executive Director of a national organization. A position that so many producers and arts manager spent their entire careers dreaming about becoming. I know, because I was one of them.

Before Wicker the Movie, Did You Know There Was a Wicker Husband Musical?

Playbill: Wicker the movie—starring Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, and Peter Dinklage—is out October 23 and already, early reviews are calling it "the horniest, most tender film of the year." We at Playbill know all about falling in love with a man made of straw—we do support the ending of the Wicked musical after all.

Feature: EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT Brings San Francisco's Fillmore District to Life at SFBATCO

BroadwayWorld: San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company (SFBATCO) is celebrating the rich cultural history of the city's Fillmore District with the world premiere of Every Saturday Night (A Harlem of the West Musical).

Should Workers Get to Bargain on AI?

Asian Pacific Post: There’s an argument playing out at bargaining tables across the province. Crystal Braunwarth, co-chair of the BC Federation of Labour’s AI committee, says unions across British Columbia are hearing workers voice their concerns about artificial intelligence entering the workplace.

Festival at UT Austin to Honor Terrence McNally’s New-Play Legacy

AMERICAN THEATRE: The Terrence McNally Foundation, in partnership with Texas Performing Arts, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and Rattlestick Theater, has announced the Terrence McNally Festival, a pop-up festival that will run Jan. 29-31, 2027, in Austin. The three-day festival will bring together distinguished theatre artists, emerging playwrights, and leading scholars for a weekend of performances, new play readings, and academic exploration.

Primary Stages Adds Four Members to Board of Directors

BroadwayWorld: Dianne Denommee, Greco Song, Stephen Taft, and Florence Zhang will join the Primary Stages Board of Directors. The Board represents a passionate group of theater-lovers committed to advancing Primary Stages' mission "to inspire, support, produce, and share the art of playwriting."

Disney Believe to offer Encanto musical, Frozen dining venue

blooloop: Disney Cruise Line's new ship, the Disney Believe, will feature the world's first Encanto musical, a new Frozen-themed dining venue, and a Zootopia entertainment hub. Disney has revealed the attractions and experiences aboard the Disney Believe, also announcing that the ship will set sail on 18 December from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Getty Images to File for Bankruptcy, Go Private in Restructuring Deal

www.hollywoodreporter.com: After abandoning a $3.7 billion merger with rival Shutterstock in late June over a regulatory roadblock, Getty Images now plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and go private in partnership with Charles Koch’s investment firm.

Experience the Hilarity of The Bed Trick at Pittsburgh Playhouse

onstagepittsburgh.com: Pittsburgh Playhouse’s production of The Bed Trick delivered an entertaining night of modern comedy while loosely following a Shakespeare classic. Written by Keiko Green,the play follows college roommates Harriet (Amalea Krill), Marianne (Quinn Starrett), and Lulu (Chloe Sohngen) as they navigate friendship, relationships, and the recent divorce of Marianne’s parents.

With Call Of Duty Release Near And No Union Contract In Sight, Activision Workers Authorize Strike

aftermath.site: Following the 2024 completion of Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard purchase, Jordan Kunze, a now-former Activision union steward and QA employee of several years, spent “well over a year” fighting to obtain a remote work accommodation due to a documented medical condition.

AI Agent Blamed for Deleting New Season of Swedish Reality-TV Show

www.rollingstone.com: Talk about meeting The Challenge — the latest challenge to the Swedish version of the popular reality-TV show has met its match by way of an apparent AI agent, which is being blamed for deleting its entire new season.

The Artisans Who Made Sure 'The Odyssey' Sailed Smoothly

variety.com: Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick, production designer Ruth De Jong and editor Jennifer Lame are part of the team that helped bring Christopher Nolan’s sprawling adaptation of “The Odyssey” to the big screen. These talented trio will be honored with the Variety Creative Collaborators Award at the Middleburg Film Festival on Oct. 16.

Head Downtown for Halloween Fun, Photo Ops, and Vendors at the Pittsburgh Playhouse’s Fall Fest

Table Magazine: There is an annual, family-friendly fall fest that can be found in the heart of Downtown Pittsburgh right outside the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Roads close and the day-to-day rhythm of the city stops in favor of all-ages crafts and activities, costumes and games — culminating in a delightful performance meant to entertain young and old alike.

What Is It to Act? On Acting and Activism

HowlRound Theatre Commons: A woman from the audience suddenly climbs onto the stage and begins to scream. The actors know it is not part of the show. This incident took place near the end of a February 2026 performance of Rage at Dramaten, the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Sweden’s national stage.

Variety Celebrates 10 Artisans to Watch 2026

variety.com: In 2026, moviegoers came back to cinemas, packing theaters to see blockbusters like “The Odyssey,” “Project Hail Mary,” “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” “Toy Story 5,” “Michael” and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” and low-budget films like “Backrooms” and “Obsession.” But all those movies needed skilled artisans to complete the directors’ visions, including those on Variety’s 10 Artisans to Watch list.

Guinness World Record set for most drones flown in a week

AV Magazine: US drone show company Sky Elements has set two Guinness World Records titles during seven large-scale drone shows over three consecutive nights in Blue Ridge, Texas. Together with Damoda America, the company launched 71,207 drones in one week, the most ever recorded, including an 11,000-drone performance, the largest drone show ever flown in America.

La MaMa and Spiderwoman Theater Present Global Indigenous Theatre Festival

AMERICAN THEATRE: La MaMa, in association with Spiderwoman Theater, has announced the Global Indigenous Theatre Festival, a nine-day festival produced in collaboration with Loose Change Productions. It will bring artists from all over the world to New York to celebrate Spiderwoman Theater’s 50th anniversary and to honor the transformative excellence of Indigenous cultures. It showcases a range of Indigenous artists from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Minneapolis. It runs Oct. 30-Nov. 7, 2026 at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre and Downstairs Theatre. Tickets are now on sale online.

Review Roundup: KRAMER/FAUCI Now Playing at St. Ann’s Warehouse

BroadwayWorld: Daniel Fish's Kramer/Fauci is now playing at St. Ann's Warehouse. In Kramer/Fauci, Will Brill stars opposite Thomas J. Ryan as Dr. Anthony Fauci in a theatrical exploration of the historic confrontation between Fauci and activist Larry Kramer during the AIDS crisis.

Digital Art Is Enhanced Through Brompton Technology

AVNetwork: Brompton Technology’s Tessera LED processing recently helped bring German visual artist Kim Asendorf’s PXL DUO POD to life at Art Basel Hong Kong, delivering the color, depth, and precision required to present its evolving pixel structures on a large-scale interactive LED installation.

Does Olivia Dean's "I've Seen It" copy Bill Withers' "Just The Two Of Us?"

Boing Boing: British singer Olivia Dean's song I've Seen It lifts a section of melody from 1981 Bill Withers hit Just The Two Of Us, according to a lawsuit [PDF] filed in California. The songs "share musical features … so striking" that it cannot be a coincidence, claim lawyers for Mattie Music Group, which manages Withers' catalog.

Dressing the Part: Crafting Costumes for Three New Fall Series

Television Academy: A heartbroken single mother in a small town becomes violently unhinged in the early 1970s. A couple who escaped the crack epidemic of the 1980s try to make their dreams come true amid the rising West Coast rap scene. A tech billionaire and his estranged movie-star wife engage in a bitter divorce played out in the contemporary and elite world of London law.

Novid Parsi on ‘The Life You Gave Me’: If Only

AMERICAN THEATRE: In Novid Parsi’s witty, moving The Life You Gave Me—which had its world premiere in 2025 at Idaho’s Boise Contemporary Theatre, and which appears in full exclusively in our Fall 2026 print edition—an Iranian American man tries to get his mother to leave and repudiate her abusive husband, his father. But the truth proves more complicated, in part thanks to two outside voices who interject with questions about the son’s right to tell his mother’s story, and about the narrative’s problematic representational politics. Parsi spoke with director Kimberly Senior (Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced and The Who and the What) about the inspiration and artistry behind the play.

What It’s Actually Like Being a Vacation Swing: Side Jobs, Getting Paid and Unexpectedly Going On

BroadwayWorld: Vacation swings — or performers who are hired to fill in periodically when a production’s cast is low on coverage — have one of the most difficult and exciting jobs in the business. Not only do they cover multiple roles (or tracks, as they’re often called), they may get up in the morning and learn they’ll be performing on Broadway that night.

2.1 Million Trade Jobs Could Go Unfilled. Milwaukee Just Stepped Up... Again

Pro Tool Reviews: We’ve talked for well over a decade about the shortage of workers in the skilled trades, and there have been a number of solid efforts to help fill the gap. One of the most promising is the Alliance for America’s Skilled Trades. Now, Milwaukee Tool has announced it’s coming on board, adding one of the most recognized names in professional power tools to the roster.

From academia to Hollywood: Blazing a trail for computer-animated hair

Yale Engineering | News: Kim’s 2023 research paper, “Lifted Curls: A Model for Tightly Coiled Hair Simulation,” plays a big role in why Blaze’s hair looks and moves the way it should. Blaze is a Black-Armenian girl with tightly coiled locks - that is, the type of hair that computer animators have long struggled to depict successfully. In computer animation, most of the tools for portraying hair have been for the straight or wavy styles that are most common to white characters.

Christopher Columbus, Satirized and Savaged on Stage

New York Theater: With the official Columbus Day proclamation from the White House crudely attacking “radical extremists” this year (and “left-wing arsonists” last year) for viewing Christopher Columbus critically, one might assume that the fight over the Italian explorer’s legacy is something new.

Game Over for “She Kills Monsters” at Copley High in Ohio

hesherman1.substack.com: On September 16, following auditions and after the start of rehearsals, students in the Copley High Thespian Society at Copley High School in Ohio were informed that the fall production, Qui Nguyen’s She Kills Monsters, would not be proceeding. She Kills Monsters has proven itself to be one of the most popular plays in high school theatre in recent years, yielding a 2020 New York Times feature about its success in that arena. While the play, particularly in a version edited for high school use, dubbed the Young Adventurers Edition, has been widely seen, it has encountered occasional opposition from those who oppose the saga, particularly for its representation of queer characters.

Why Lauren Patton-Villegas directed ‘Where Dead Women Go to Dance’

DC Theater Arts: Now for the real earnest answer to why this play: We read a lot of very different scripts when we were looking for a show for this fall slot. This was the script that got my attention and set my brain running, and it did it in a quiet way. It is full of humor and pain and history and forgiveness in ways that feel familiar amid circumstances that are fantastic.

‘Slam Frank’ Made Me Laugh. Then It Made Me Want to Leave

OnStage Blog: I love seeing new plays, and the buzz around the opening for the expanded run of Slam Frank at The Orpheum had me hooked. Everyone seemed to have strong feelings about it, and I didn't want to form my opinion from headlines or other people's takes. I wanted to see it for myself so I could be part of the conversation.

Q & A: Kresley Figueroa on Being a Young Artists & The Denyce Graves Foundation

OperaWire OperaWire: The Denyce Graves Foundation began as a way to bridge the past to future by honoring overlooked musical voices and empowering the next generation of world-class artists. Founded by opera star Denyce Graves, the foundation celebrates trailblazing musicians, music educators, and composers of color through community engagement programs, concerts and presentations, creation of new works of art, establishment of young artist development training and more, as well as via social and traditional media.

Exclusive: How NYC Theater Is Making Audiences Scream This Spooky Season

BroadwayWorld: This season, a few plays in New York City — both on and Off-Broadway — have audiences jumping out of their seats… and not just for the standing ovation. “Fear is contagious, so as soon as that starts spreading around a space, everyone catches it,” Jamie Armitage, writer and director of Off-Broadway’s A Ghost in Your Ear, exclusively tells BroadwayWorld.

NFTRW Weekly Top Five

Here are the top five comment generating posts of the past week:

Rachel Zegler Says EVITA Balcony Scene Opened Up 'Accessibility In Theater' Conversation

BroadwayWorld: One of the most unforgettable theatre moments of 2025 was Rachel Zegler's balcony sequence in the West End revival of Evita. As audiences from inside the London Palladium watched a livestream of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina," Zegler performed the song for audiences outside the theatre for free.

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Doubles Grants for Artists

mymodernmet.com: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is increasing financial support for the artists who help shape the city’s cultural landscape. For the first time in nearly 20 years, city-funded grants for individual artists and small nonprofits will double from $5,000 to up to $10,000.

SpongeBob is Getting His Own Musical at Sea on a Royal Caribbean Cruise

AOL: Royal Caribbean is bringing SpongeBob SquarePants to sea next summer with a musical production onboard its newest ship. Royal Caribbean said in an October 2 announcement that The SpongeBob Musical will debut on Hero of the Seas when the ship begins sailing from Miami in August 2027. It will be the first production at sea...

The Designer of Olivia Rodrigo’s Viral ‘Melting’ Dress Explains How It Worked

Yahoo News Singapore: The 2026 MTV VMAs might have taken over Los Angeles on Sunday, but the weekend's biggest music-fashion moment might still belong to Olivia Rodrigo. Rodrigo entered the winter section of her "The Unraveled Tour" at PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford, Conn., on Friday night in a pale blue collared minidress with a sleeveless bodice, fitted waistband and sharply pleated skirt. Then the rain started.

Skydance Merger Complete, Will Become Sentient And Kill Us All, Probably

www.wonkette.com: It’s all over: Paramount and Warner Bros. have been permitted to join forces in the worst fucking merger I have ever seen in my life, and I lived through the Clear Channel radio buyouts that destroyed traditional broadcast media!

 

Planar Expands Creative LED Portfolio with New Tile Series

Sound & Video Contractor: Today, Planar, a global leader in visualization technology, announced the launch of the Planar® Tile™ Series, expanding its portfolio of creative LED display solutions with flexible and rigid LED modules designed to bring custom shapes, curves and configurations to life.

Powersoft secures €6m HOLOPLOT deal for new immersive venue

Installation: Powersoft has signed an agreement worth approximately €6m with HOLOPLOT to supply amplification technology for a new immersive entertainment venue. The project extends a partnership between the two companies dating back to 2019, which has already seen Powersoft technology deployed as part of HOLOPLOT’s X1 Matrix Array system at Sphere in Las Vegas.

Mckenna Grace Recreated a 'Hunger Games' Gown by Monique Lhuillier

wwd.com/pop-culture: ckenna Grace just took method dressing to a new level. The actress wore a recreation of one of Jennifer Lawrence‘s gowns from the film “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” on Tuesday night for the “Elegance Is Authority: The Story, Style and Power of Panem” exhibition at Musee Rodin in Paris on Tuesday night.

Dakota Johnson’s ‘Verity’ Cottage Wardrobe Is the Best Part of the Movie

Glamour: All that being said, one might assume Celine cardigans and Loewe sweaters have no place in Lowen’s cottage-core capsule rotation, but Verity costume designer Jacqueline Demeterio argues that price tags don’t matter as long as the pieces look like something this “downtown Brooklyn cool girl” could find vintage shopping.

Finding The Sweet Spot: Making The Best Of Mixing Console Placement Issues

ProSoundWeb: I’m sure that most sound engineers are familiar with the following scenario: you turn up to a venue and the mixing console isn’t where you expect it to be – it might be off to one side, underneath a balcony, in the very back of the room, up high in the stalls or stuck in a corner somewhere.

Ravinia Changed Almost Everything. The Trick Was Making It Feel Like Nothing Changed.

Architect Magazine: Few performance venues are asked to accommodate the Chicago Symphony Orchestra one night and a major pop act the next. For decades, that range has defined Ravinia—a historic outdoor music festival in Highland Park, Illinois, just north of Chicago—and it helped drive the just-completed transformation of its largest venue, the Hunter Pavilion.

Students and Parents Protest After Wisconsin Superintendent Blocks High School Production of FLASHDANCE

BroadwayWorld: Students, parents, and community members in Watertown, Wisconsin rallied outside their school district offices this week after the interim superintendent blocked Watertown High School from staging Flashdance as its spring 2027 musical. The news was first reported by WPR.

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Doubles Grants for Artists

mymodernmet.com: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is increasing financial support for the artists who help shape the city’s cultural landscape. For the first time in nearly 20 years, city-funded grants for individual artists and small nonprofits will double from $5,000 to up to $10,000.

VR chair offers a new way into virtual worlds without a headset

newatlas.com: Virtual reality can take you anywhere, but strap on a headset for long enough and your sore neck brings you back to actual reality. A Kyushu University researcher wants to change that, and his idea is a chair that offers a new way of experiencing virtual worlds.