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Imeem Mobile Reaches One Millionth Install

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:44:51 -0000

Imeem Mobile Reaches One Millionth Install (Imeem Blog)

Imeem's iPhone App

Imeem, perhaps best known for offering free (ad backed) on-demand online music streaming from the four major labels, has followed up the mobile version of the service it created for the G1 Android phone on T-Mobile with a new iPhone app, which will become available in Apple’s App Store May 20.

Imeem's Android App

According to Imeem, the app will allow fans to create custom playlists, get personalized music recommendations and download songs from iTunes. It also includes MyMusic, a feature that lets users browse and stream any of the 20,000 songs imeem allows them to upload to their imeem profile via the iPhone. That’s about 80 GB of music accessible from the iPhone without having to store any of it directly on the phone, which only has between 8-16 GB of capacity.

Imeem’s app offers two key elements: a radio function that streams songs from a given artist mixed with similar fare, and a “My Music” section that allows streaming access to a user’s own library of uploaded songs. The latter essentially expands the music storage capacity of the iPhone, with one catch: Users must pay for a storage locker of more than 100 songs. The iPhone’s relatively limited storage capacity (up to 16MGB, including apps and other software besides music files) isn’t enough for most serious music fans, so Imeem is providing an avenue to iPod-like capacity via a cloud-based subscription service, so that listeners don’t have to carry a second piece of hardware.

The app itself will be free to download, and just like the Android version will be fully supported with advertising, while the Imeem library of up to 20,000 songs will cost via subscription plans that range from about $30 to $100 annually.

At launch, it will not have a brand sponsor—as the Android app did in Kia—but Imeem has offered that it is in talks with several companies now and expects to announce something soon.

source/credits:
Billboard
gigaom.com

Related:
WIRED on how the Imeem app overcomes the iPhone's storage limitations

Get imeem Mobile for the iPhone:
Imeem Spotlight Group
Imeem Mobile Group

A Story Worth Repeating

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:27:11 -0000

A "Wikipedia hoax" by a 22-year-old Dublin student resulted in a fake
quote being published in newspaper obituaries around the world.

'Building The Barn' from the movie, 'Witness.' Music scored and conducted by Jarre.

The phony quote, attributed to Maurice Jarre who died at the end of March, appeared everywhere in obituaries for the French composer.

It was posted on the online encyclopedia shortly after his death and later appeared in obituaries published in the Guardian, the London Independent, on the BBC Music Magazine
website and in Indian and Australian newspapers.

“One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear,” Jarre was quoted as saying.

However, these words were not uttered by the Oscar-winning composer but written by Shane Fitzgerald, a final-year undergraduate student studying sociology and economics at University College Dublin.

Mr Fitzgerald said he placed the quote on the website as an experiment when
doing research on globalisation.

He wanted to show how journalists use the internet as a primary source and how people are connected especially through the internet, he said.

He picked Wikipedia because it was something a lot of journalists look at and it can be edited by anyone, he told The Irish Times.

Fitzgerald posted the quote on Wikipedia late at night after news of Jarre’s death broke. “I saw it on breaking news and thought if I was going to do something I should do it quickly. I knew journalists wouldn’t be looking at it until the morning,” he said

The quote had no referenced sources and was therefore taken down by moderators of Wikipedia within minutes. However, Fitzgerald put it back a few more times until it was finally left up on the site for more than 24 hours.

While he was wary about the ethical implications of using someone’s death as a social experiment, he had carefully generated the quote so as not to distort or taint Jarre’s life, he said.

Fitzgerald was shocked by the result of his experiment.

“I didn’t expect it to go that far. I expected it to be in blogs and sites, but on mainstream quality papers? I was very surprised about,” he said.

However, the hoax remained undiscovered for weeks until Fitzgerald e-mailed offending newspapers to tell them that they had published an inaccurate quote.

“I don’t think it would have been found out unless I had told them so,” Fitzgerald said yesterday. In recent days the Guardian printed a correction and an article about the hoax.

Fitzgerald admits that he is not a sophisticated hacker or technology junkie. “I’m capable of using a computer but I’m not a whizz. Anyone can go in and edit anonymously,” he said.

While the quote is no longer part of the Wikipedia article, evidence of edits of the quote in the Maurice Jarre article from a Dublin-based computer at the end of March can be seen in the Wikipedia edit history.

Despite having been removed from Wikipedia, BBC Music Magazine and Daily Mail websites and corrected by the Guardian, the quote last night remained intact on dozens of blogs, websites and newspapers.

This article originally appeared in the print edition of The Irish Times
Source : irishtimes.com

You must be logged-in to hear all of the music on this playlist in its entirety.

Shane Fitzgerald, etudiant en sociologie et economie a l'University College de Dublin a fait une experience dans le cadre de ses recherches sur la globalisation.

Resultat: une fausse citation de Maurice Jarre a circule sur toute la planete web, au damne des journalistes.

Mis a mal par ce jeune etudiant irlandais, les journalistes ont repris tel quel, une citation imputee au compositeur francais, peu de temps apres sa mort, en mars dernier. De nombreux quotidiens britanniques, australiens et indiens, ainsi qu’une importante communaute de bloggeurs ont mis dans sa necrologie les deux phrases suivantes: "On pourrait dire que ma vie elle-même a ete une musique de film. La musique etait ma vie, la musique m'a donne la vie, et la musique est ce pourquoi je vais rester dans les memoires longtemps apres que je quitterai cette vie". "Quand je mourrai, il y aura une derniere valse jouant dans ma tete, que je pourrai seul entendre".

Shane Fitzgerald a ajoute cette citation au profil de Maurice Jarre sur la plateforme Wikipedia.

Il a explique que dans le cadre de ses recherches, il avait poste ce texte en tout etat de cause: les journalistes consultent regulierement le site. Du coup, The Guardian et The Independant notamment se sont laisses prendre au piege.

Veritablement destabilise par l’ampleur que sa citation a pu prendre, Shane Fitzgerald s’est dit "choque, ne s’attendant pas a ce que ca se retrouve sur des journaux de qualite." La tromperie n’a ete connue du grand public seulement par l’intermediaire de son auteur. Voyant le phenomene se developper, il a envoye un mail aux principaux journaux les informant du piege.

Source : excite.fr

First music download trial may get a do-over

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:24:15 -0000

A Minnesota woman ordered to pay $222,000 in the nation's first music download trial may get another chance with a jury.

Source : Los Angeles Times
Originally posted on May 16, 2008

MINNEAPOLIS
The recording industry has sued thousands of people who shared music online, and has argued that all they have to prove is that the defendant made the music available. They compared it to someone displaying pirated DVDs for sale on a table.

Music-sharers have argued that the only proven downloaders of their music were investigators working for the record companies themselves.

That was the case in the trial last fall of Jammie Thomas of Brainerd, Minn. U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. Davis instructed jurors that making sound recordings available without permission violates record company copyrights "regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown."

On Thursday Davis said that may have been a mistake.

He wrote that he found a 1993 ruling from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Minnesota, that said infringement requires "an actual dissemination of either copies or phonorecords."

The question of how much the record companies have to prove to win their case came up just before it went to the jury on Oct. 4. Davis decided the issue from the bench, siding with the jury instruction favored by the record companies.

On Thursday, Davis wrote that neither side presented the 1993 decision to him. And he noted that one of the rulings in another case from Arizona, which the record companies used to support their side, was vacated on April 29.

Oral arguments on the question of a new trial are planned for July 1 in Duluth, where the trial was held.

Record company attorney Richard Gabriel said even if the companies have to prove downloading occurred, it should suffice to show downloading by investigators working for the record companies.

He said they also proved at the trial that Thomas violated the copyright because the files on her computer bore the signatures of online music pirates. Thomas claimed the music came from her own CDs.

"If we have to retry the case, we will do so without hesitation," he said.

Record companies have sued at least 30,000 people for distributing music online. Some cases have been dismissed, and many defendants settled for a few thousand dollars. Thomas, who makes $36,000 a year working for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, was the first to take the record companies all the way to a trial.

Jurors ordered her to pay $222,000, which was $9,250 for each of the 24 songs record companies brought up in her trial. The original lawsuit accused her of offering 1,702 songs on the Kazaa file-sharing network.

Thomas has not yet had to pay the verdict while it has been on appeal, her attorney, Brian Toder, said on Thursday. Toder, of the Minneapolis law firm of Chestnut & Cambronne, said he's in talks with the record companies to settle the case.

Source : Los Angeles Times

bigdealbooks.com

website in revision / development...

Amazon's Kindle 2 Looks Highly Profitable

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:32:59 -0000

iSuppli Teardown Indicates that the second-generation e-book reader totals $185.49 in materials and manufacturing costs -- half the Kindle 2's retail price.

Source : InformationWeek
Originally posted on April 23, 2009 08:48 AM
By Antone Gonsalves

A teardown of Amazon's Kindle 2 reveals that only half the cost of the device is in materials and manufacturing, which points to a healthy profit margin for the online retailer.

In breaking apart the Kindle 2, iSuppli showed that the profit margin appears hefty enough to allow for future price cuts to battle competitors, such as the Sony Reader, if necessary.

The total cost of materials and manufacturing is $185.49, which represents 51% of the Kindle 2's $359 retail price, iSuppli said. Of that $185.49, $8.66 is for manufacturing expenses and the battery. [The appreciable cost of wireless access was not factored into iSuppli's analysis.]

By far the most expensive component is the E Ink display, which costs an estimated $60, or 41.5% of the materials cost, iSuppli said.

"The new version of the E Ink display in the Kindle 2 supports 16-level grayscale images, rather than the 4-level version used in the previous-generation hardware," Andrew Rassweiler, director and principal analyst of teardown services for iSuppli, said in a statement released Wednesday. "This makes the Kindle 2's display look like a printed page."

In addition, the display is able to show an image event when it's not drawing power, an important feature for extending battery life.

The second most expensive component is the wireless broadband module, which makes it possible to buy and download electronic books and magazines from Amazon.

Provided by Novatel Wireless, the module costs $39.50, and accounts for 27.3% of the materials cost, iSuppli said. In the first-generation Kindle, the wireless component was within a chipset that was an integral part of the main printed circuit board. In the second generation, the component is separate, making the Kindle easier to design.

In addition, because Novatel makes many different wireless modules, it buys components in high volume, something the company can use to negotiate prices down with suppliers, such as Qualcomm, which makes the integrated circuit core of the wireless module, iSuppli said.

Another key component is Freescale Semiconductor's multimedia application processor, priced at $8.64. The processor is based on an ARM11 microcontroller core, which runs at a clock speed of 532 MHz. Freescale also supplied the audio circuit and power-management integrated circuit.

The Kindle 2's key competitor is the Sony Reader, which sells for $300. Amazon started shipping the second-generation device in February. Amazon has never said how many Kindles it has sold since first releasing the device in November 2007. However, the retailer has said the Kindle represents 10% of the sales of the 230,000 books available in electronic format and in physical form.

The Kindle's success has inspired others to look closely at the e-book reader market. Publisher Hearst reportedly plans to launch a wireless electronic reader this year for viewing its newspapers and magazines.

Go to source for links and comments: Information Week

Oh look, the record labels want a bail out...

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 19:57:51 -0000

They want U.S. tax payer money to pay for their schemes to control and pollute the art and to defray the cost of litigation against innovators and listeners.

Unable to compete in the 21st century, desperate record companies with no particular national loyalties are probing the prospect of U.S. federal coercion as a means of possible rescue. The lead industry giant spearheading the tax proposal is Warner Music Group – "long notorious for peddling violent, racist, cop-hating, drug-glorifying gangsta rap" (and a stakeholder in beloved Imeem).

Edgar Bronfman Jr.’s Warner Music Group has tapped industry veteran JIm Griffin to spearhead a controversial plan to bundle a monthly fee into consumers’ internet-service bills for unlimited access to music.

The plan—the boldest move yet to keep the bleeding entertainment industry giants alive—is simple: Consumers will pay a monthly fee, bundled into an internet-service bill in exchange for unfettered access to a database of all known music.

Bronfman’s decision to hire Griffin, a respected industry critic, demonstrates the desperation of the recording industry. It has shrunk to a $10 billion business from $15 billion in almost a decade. Compact disc sales are plummeting as online music downloads skyrocket…

…Warner’s plan would have consumers pay an additional fee—maybe $5 a month—bundled into their monthly internet-access bill in exchange for the right to freely download, upload, copy, and share music without restrictions.

Griffin says those fees could create a pool as large as $20 billion annually to pay artists and copyright holders. Eventually, advertising could subsidize the entire system, so that users who don’t want to receive ads could pay the fee, and those who don’t mind advertising wouldn’t pay a dime.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch rightly calls the scheme a “protection racket.” Arrington has more details on the plan they don’t want you to know about :

the plan essentially comes down to telling ISPs that they can avoid any copyright infringement liability if they pay the fee on behalf of customers. And while the government wouldn’t be directly involved, the willingness of law enforcement agencies and the judicial system to enforce civil and criminal copyright infringement laws is the stick by which Griffin will convince ISPs to jump on board. It’s government endorsed extortion, nothing more and nothing less.

The effects on innovation in music would be disastrous if such a scheme were ever to become reality. This initiative is a desperate attempt by dinosoars facing imminent extinction to help themselves. For everyone else, though, this is the worst possible thing that could happen. This is an attack on creativity, innovation, and the future. And they want you to pay for it.

The latest scheme comes on the heels of big labels' current initiative to stick radio stations with "performance fee" --

National Association of Broadcasters President and CEO David Rehr has urged lawmakers to oppose legislation that includes forcing America’s hometown radio stations to pay “performance fee” to the recording industry for music aired free on the radio. The legislation, introduced in the House, is supported by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

A measure opposing the Congressional action has been introduced.

“Local radio broadcasters consider this fee a ‘performance tax’ that will not only harm your local radio stations, but will threaten new artists trying to break into the business as well as your constituents who rely on local radio,” wrote Rehr. “Although the proponents of H.R. 848 claim this bill is about compensating artists, in actuality at least half of this fee will go directly into the pockets of the big record labels, funneling billions of dollars to companies based overseas.”

(The other three of the four largest record label conglomerates — Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and EMI — are internationally-based.)

“Although the big record labels have seen their revenues decline over the last decade, local radio broadcasters are not the reason the recording industry is losing money, and it should not be the industry to fix it,” wrote Rehr.

State broadcast associations representing all 50 states, as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, immediately issued a resolution expressing opposition to a performance tax.

True to notorious historical form, the big labels are attempting to kill new forms that are gradually - palpably - competively taking shape in the new media and regain control of what they've been losing by means of influence peddling and sweetheart deals.

Griffin's notion of a big pool to compensate living artists is not without merit, but there is absolutely no reason why the old record labels should have their hands in such a hypothetical pool. The labels are fighting for life by attempting to partner with the U.S. federal government and they want to kill the new forms through which artists might have a more direct hand in the the control and distribution of their own music. A few short years ago they would have treated Griffin's proposal as a threat and slammed the door in his face, today he is their saviour for hire. A new generation of internet entrepreneurs have come up with astonishing innovations to purvey music, compensate artists and even keep the big labels in the game if they will be nimble. The labels have responded with this show of cards: their intent is to stifle or take control of the outcomes of the innovation for which they have no legitimate claim, and retake online music all for themselves in the form of government sanctioned and protected utility.

Where do your congressional representatives stand on this music tax proposal? Ask them: 202-224-3121. The music business is alive and well. It is only the record business that is ailing and it should be left to its fate.

noperformancetax.org

Related:

Events Foretold : Interview with Jim Griffin:
Part I
Part II

“I have to thank… every DJ, every radio guy, every promotions guy, everybody who ever put up a poster for me and spread the word.” — Alicia Keys at the 2008 Grammy Awards (February 2008)

“Country radio, thank you so much for being our mouthpiece. You know what we do means nothing if it never gets played, and no one gets to hear it.”
— Rascal Flatts, Vocal Group of the Year, Country Music Awards, 2007

“Radio helped me a lot. That’s the audience. I can’t see them, but I know they’re there. I can’t reach out and touch them with my hand, but I know they’re there.” — B.B. King, 2002

The Beatles stike a U.S. distribution deal with Capitol Records in LA for their own new label, Apple, in 1968. The hints of uneasiness and disunity in this photo are telling in retrospect. The band broke up in 1970 but the band as business entity wasn't formally dissolved until 1977. In the chaotic interval, Apple was placed in receivership by a London court while Capitol ripped off the Beatles for untold millions of dollars by underreporting sales of Beatle records in the U.S. market. (A judgement against Capitol by the U.S. District Court in New York came much later.) It came to light in the 1990s that E.M.I., Apple's U.K. distributor, had been cooking the books in a similar fashion. The Beatles again sued and won judgement.

Credits :

Michelle Malkin

Michael Arrington/TechCrunch :
The Music Industry's New Extortion Scheme

RadioFacts.com

Monocle | monocle.com

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:31:02 -0000

Asia's most advanced naval fleet belongs to the world's only non-existent navy...

Under its post-war constitution, Japan is not allowed a navy, only a Self-Defence Force.
Yet, today, the country has, in the form of its Maritime Self-Defense Force, one of the largest and most sophisticated fleets in the world. Tensions with North Korea and China have also seen the country increasingly debating its military future. Monocle was given unique access to the fleet and asked leading analysts to assess the future of the region.

Source and Related links (away from Imeem) :

Article : Naval Gazing -- Etajima, Hachinohe & Ominato

MONOCLE | issueO1.volume01 | MARCH 2007 (pdf) (sample)

monocle.com (homepage)

Matsuura Akira introduces Monocle at excite.co.jp

U2 September 12 Show at Soldier Field Sold Out...

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:16:35 -0000

and a second show is slated for September 13th.

U2 sold out 65,000 tickets to its Sept. 12 Soldier Field concert in a matter of minutes Monday, and then announced a second Soldier Field show Sept. 13.

Tickets for the second show will go on sale at 10 a.m. April 6 via LiveNation.com, Ticketmaster and phone, 800-745-3000. Tickets for the first show were popping up on secondary ticket sites, selling for as high as $3,000.

Besides Chicago, the Irish quartet sold out concerts in New York (82,000 tickets) and Boston (72,000), setting the largest single-day attendance record in each city, tour producer Live Nation said in a statement.

Source : Chicago Trib

Lionsgate is tapping 'Suicide'

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 01:44:53 -0000

Studio has acquired rights to the stage play

Source: Variety
Originally Posted: Wed., Mar. 25, 2009
By Dave McNary

Lionsgate has acquired the feature rights to the stage play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf” and signed musicvideo director Nzingha Stewart to helm from her screenplay adaptation.

Nzingha Stewart

“For Colored Girls,” written by Ntozake Shange, was first performed in 1975; it was made into a 1982 telepic with Shange, Laurie Carlos, Trazana Beverly, Alfre Woodard and Lynn Whitfield for PBS’ “American Playhouse” banner.

Ntozake Shange

The play is a series of 20 poems telling stories of love, abandonment, domestic abuse and other issues faced by black women.

Lionsgate made the announcement Wednesday and touted its “leadership role in producing and distributing a diverse roster of motion pictures about black characters.”

The mini-major noted that its upcoming release slate includes the Sundance award winner “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” the documentary “More Than a Game” and the next two films in the Tyler Perry franchise, “I Can Do Bad All by Myself” and “Why Did I Get Married Too?”

Source: Variety

Benny Rides Again

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:23:49 -0000

The Benny Goodman Centennial
Source : WSJ
Originally Published on Wednesday, March 25, 2009
By Will Friedwald

In 1940, the aspiring lyricist Alan Bergman was 15; he had a family friend who worked for NBC, and he was able to sneak into a rehearsal by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra. "I heard Benny call something called 'Benny Rides Again,' which they were apparently playing for the first time. I just absolutely fell out of my chair! It was the most amazing thing I had ever heard in my life. I had never heard music like that before -- no one had."

Mr. Bergman describes the Goodman Orchestra of the early '40s as "Benny's all-time greatest band," and he's not alone in this opinion. To more casual fans, the Goodman band that played the historic Carnegie Hall concert of January 1938 had more sheer star power. But the ensemble of the immediate prewar period was something else again. This is shown in a seven-CD collection of that band's essential recordings, "Classic Columbia and OKeh Benny Goodman Orchestra Sessions 1939-1958", released just in time for the Benny Goodman Centennial.

As Loren Schoenberg writes in the set's excellent liner notes, Goodman's intention with this band was nothing less than "the reinvention of the jazz orchestra." So the clarinetist hired and encouraged a staff of brilliant young, forward-thinking composer-orchestrators. Although Goodman had no shortage of star soloists in this period -- such as trumpeter Cootie Williams and drummers Dave Tough and Sid Catlett -- the real stars of the band were arrangers like Mel Powell, and especially Eddie Sauter.

The new set opens in the summer of 1939, after Goodman (1909-1986) had relocated to Columbia Records; as always, the bandleader continued to play a lot of charts by Fletcher Henderson, whose pioneering work had provided the foundation for Goodman's breakthrough and the beginning of the swing era. As Mel Powell said to me in 1991, "Fletcher's work was a kind of classic, deceptively and disarmingly simple, but everything was perfect. It was very simple in a Mozartean way."

By contrast, Powell (who won the Pulitzer Prize for his contemporary classical music in 1990 and died in 1998) described Sauter as "a great innovator and a great breakthrough man, someone who could make the standard orchestra sound like a really different kind of ensemble. Eddie was the single most forceful, most inventive, most imaginative arranger that I've ever known."

The Mosaic set concentrates on the band's hardcore jazz instrumentals and, as Powell suggested, the poles between the Henderson and Sauter approaches couldn't be further apart. Still, they both represent classic Benny Goodman.

There's one November 1940 session where past and future go head to head in two tunes. "Henderson Stomp" is the pianist-arranger's self-titled number from 1926. It's a very straightforward eight-bar riff, with theme and variations that are certainly no more and no less intricate than they need to be. And under Goodman's inspiration, it swings like mad (the only part that drags is Henderson's own somewhat plodding piano solo).

The next tune, the one that knocked the young Alan Bergman out, is Sauter's "Benny Rides Again," which propels the clarinetist into a different universe. Goodman's solo begins where his classic 1938 "Sing! Sing! Sing!" left off, with the clarinetist wailing over percussion. But when he gets where he's going, it's a totally unexpected place, a starkly impressionistic domain that borders on Ravel and Prokofiev. And then, from there, Goodman ventures back into the blues. Sauter's writing alludes to Duke Ellington and Russian classical composers even as it foreshadows bebop and the "progressive" jazz of Stan Kenton and Woody Herman.

Nowadays, many post-modernist "downtown" composers will throw together different styles in an almost random fashion, forcing them to conflict with each other, and then will settle back and watch the fun. Sauter, by contrast, blends these disparate elements together, so nothing seems like it doesn't belong. Yet even Sauter's most far-out writing never stops swinging, which was also due to Goodman's galvanizing leadership. Henderson's works were like an art-deco biplane, while Sauter's were more like a rocket ship. But both vehicles got you where you were going.

As longtime Goodmanite Chris Griffin told me: "There was an awful lot to be gotten out of [Sauter's music], like when you're eating some spareribs and you get that one last piece of meat out of there."

There are other arrangements than those by Henderson and Sauter, including some especially ingenious pieces by Powell, like "The Earl" and "Mission to Moscow." But Sauter emerges as the star of the era -- along with Goodman himself, whose luminous reed tone and inspired solos enhance virtually every take of every tune. The first five discs of the box take us up to the summer of 1942, at which point all commercial recording stopped for 2½ years thanks to the infamous American Federation of Musicians recording ban of 1942-44, a power play by a union boss that ultimately backfired. The final two discs sample Goodman's Columbia sessions of 1945-1958, but while there's some marvelous music from those postwar years, the focus of the collection is on the 1939-1942 band.

Apart from a few features for Cootie Williams ("Superman") and Charlie Christian ("Solo Flight"), the bulk of Goodman's commissions were for himself.

Most pieces were essentially dialogues between his clarinet and the ensemble, which, in a sense, amount to competitions between Goodman and his arrangers, as if he's daring them to come up with something that he can't play the hell out of. Charts like "Clarinade" and "Clarinet à la King" get tougher and tougher, but Goodman never met a tune that he couldn't tackle.

Related :

The Official Benny Goodman Website

The Benny Goodman Centennial : The 100th anniversary of the birth of Benny Goodman (May 30) will be celebrated in a variety of ways across the nation, with much of the activity centered in Chicago, Goodman's hometown.

Benny Goodman Centennial Celebration with Jon Faddis & Columbia College Chicago’s Chicago Jazz Ensemble

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra revisits the band leader and clarinetist’s historic Benny Goodman’s 1938 Carnegie Hall concert, performing hits such as “Sing, Sing, Sing” and “After You’ve Gone.” Joining in this celebration to the King of Swing will be a living history of jazz clarinetists.

Seattle P - I goes web only

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:35:20 -0000

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its final print edition this past Tuesday.

Source : guardian.co.uk (UK link not publishable here)

By Andrew Clark in Seattle
Originally published on Tuesday 17 March 2009 19.23 GMT

Trade was unusually brisk for Wilbur Hathaway, a newspaper vendor near Seattle's Pike Place waterfront market. His stall was flanked by huge stacks of commemorative last-day editions of the city's oldest newspaper.

"The Post-Intelligencer's always been Seattle's best paper – they're very good at in-depth reporting," said Hathaway, coddled against a cold wind in woolly hat and thick blue gloves.

Since his stand opened in 1979, he has seen his buyers get gradually older: "The younger they go, the less they care."

" title="The front page of the final print edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Photograph: Marcus Donner/Reuters" />

After 146 years, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer breathed its dying breath after its owner, Hearst Corp, lost patience with losses that hit $14m last year due to plummeting advertising revenue and a dwindling circulation. It is the biggest victim yet in a financial slump that is crushing the US newsprint industry.

The Seattle PI went out with a shout, tripling its print run and producing a colourful four-section special edition under the headline: "you've meant the world to us".

In the newsroom, the paper's 167 staff toasted the final run with Wild Turkey bourbon and George Dickel whisky before retiring to a local sports bar, Buckley's, to swap memories.

Picking up her morning copy in downtown Seattle, 74-year-old Maria Abdin said she had been a fan of the paper for 25 years.

"I'm in a state of mourning," she said. "It's a great Seattle treasure. I've never been a television news watcher. I prefer to be able to sit down, turn the pages and reflect."

Although a streamlined version with 20 reporters will survive on the internet, the Seattle PI's exit from newsprint has been greeted with industry-wide gloom. Unlike Britain, the US has only a handful of national titles, with most papers unique to a city. A macabre countdown has begun, to see which major city will be left without any newspaper at all.

The Denver-based Rocky Mountain News shut last month, the Christian Science Monitor recently went on-line only and Arizona's Tucson Citizen is on the brink.

Others are showing signs of distress. Sam Zell's Tribune Corporation which owns the Chicago Tribune and the Star-Tribune in Minneapolis.

The New York Times has tapped the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim for funds and has scrapped its dividend after seeing its debt cut to "junk" grade. Detroit's two newspapers have cut back on daily deliveries. Hearst has warned that it will sell or shut another major title, the San Francisco Chronicle, unless it can stem losses of $50m a year.

Analysts say a fifth of America's newspaper journalists have lost their jobs over five years. Ken Doctor, a news publishing expert at California-based researcher Outsell, said the flow of newspaper stories had fallen by 25% to 30%, with a particularly heavy slump in labour-intensive local reporting.

"There's a lot less reporting happening, on a national scale," he said. "For the 1,500 or so daily newspapers, it's just a matter of getting smaller and smaller."

Lucrative classified advertising was already migrating to free-of-charge websites such as Craigslist before the credit crunch began in 2007, causing spending to drop like a stone.

John Morton, a Maryland-based newspaper analyst, said: "The three main sources of classifieds are autos, real estate and 'help wanted'. All three of those sources have been in the tank."

As they struggle to adapt, newspaper owners are considering dropping days. Smaller publications are increasingly producing a single weekend edition and a few are going silent on Mondays. Editions are getting thinner, with content ceded to the web.

The decline in readership is hardly new, but it is accelerating. According to the US Audit Bureau of Circulation, daily newspaper sales were down 4.6% year-on-year in September 2008, compared with a 2.6% fall the previous year.

In Seattle, the Post Intelligencer's cross-town rival, the Seattle Times, is fighting for its life. Its publisher, Frank Blethen, warned in an email to managers last week that the current quarter "will probably be the all-time bad one in my career/lifetime". Blethen said there was little pleasure in picking up the PI's readers: "We find no joy in the loss of any journalistic voice."

Opposite the offices of the defunct PI yesterday morning, a coffee shop, Espresso Elegance, posted a sign offering free drinks to any of the paper's employees: "We will truly miss the PI."

A handful of staff trickled into work to clear their desks, to hand in company mobile phones and tie up administrative loose ends.

A 30-year veteran, transport reporter Larry Lange, told The Guardian that he felt a sense of bereavement: "It's a little like your ailing mother finally dies. You know it's going to happen but then it hits you in the face like a brick when it finally does – when you realise that person's gone and won't return."

The P - I is only the most recent print newspaper to shutter. The list is long — and melancholy-inducing. Here are some of the major metropolitan dailies struggling to survive and a few that have recently stopped the presses for good.

Miami Herald : Deep cuts in wages, mandatory time off and 175 pinks slips were announced in early March to the staffers, after parent company McClatchy announced falling revenues.

San Francisco Chronicle : Last week, a tentative agreement was reached between the paper and its union, a key step in keeping the Hearst operation running. If the Chronicle shuts down, San Francisco will be the first U.S. metropolitan city without a major daily paper.

Tucson Citizen : Earlier this week, it was reported that the paper, which has been for sale since January, would cease publication on Saturday if a buyer was not found. A few days later, news broke of two prospective buyers. It’s a developing story ...

Chicago Tribune : The flagship publication of the Tribune Co., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December.

Gone :
Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 27, 2009
Baltimore Examiner, Feb. 15, 2009 (gawker.com)
The Capital Times, April 30, 2008
Albuquerque Tribune, Feb. 23, 2008
Cincinnati Post, Dec. 31, 2007
King County Journal, Jan. 21, 2007

Credits :
guardian.co.uk (UK link not publishable here)
MSN

Related :
10 Most Endangered Newspapers in U.S. (TIME)
Why there are no models for a new journalism (Newsweek)

Hollywood vient au CERN

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:20:15 -0000

Hollywood comes to CERN
Source : CERN
Geneva, 12 February 2009.

CERN1 recently hosted a visit from actors Tom Hanks and Ayelet Zurer and director Ron Howard as they unveiled exclusively some select footage from their new film adaptation of Dan Brown’s novel Angels & Demons, set for worldwide release by Sony Pictures on 15 May 2009.

When Sony Pictures first contacted CERN early in 2007 about filming part of Angels & Demons there, the laboratory quickly saw an opportunity and was excited to participate.

“The fact that Angels & Demons is a best-selling novel and now a Hollywood movie gives us the opportunity to show how exciting the reality of antimatter research is,” said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci. “Both fiction and science want to take us from the ordinary to the extraordinary; the difference is that science has to operate entirely within reality.”

“It’s been a privilege working with CERN,” said director Ron Howard. “The scientists here have been incredibly helpful in explaining the science to us, and giving us access to some incredible places. I think what they’re doing here is fantastic.”

Understanding why nature prefers matter to antimatter is the main thrust of CERN’s antimatter research. When our Universe was born some 13.7 billion years ago in the Big Bang, matter and antimatter would have been created in equal quantities, and as Dan Brown correctly points out, when matter and antimatter meet, they annihilate, leaving only energy behind. One of the great mysteries of the Universe today is how enough matter has survived to provide the building blocks for stars, planets, and even us.

Antimatter has practical uses too. The medical imaging technique of PET scanning uses antimatter to help doctors visualize the functioning of the human body. The scanners used owe much to techniques developed for particle physics research. In the future, antimatter might also be used to treat cancer. Preliminary experiments carried out at CERN have shown that antimatter particle beams could be very effective at destroying cancer cells.

Hollywood vient au CERN
Genève, le 12 février 2009.

Le CERN1 a reçu ce jour la visite des acteurs Tom Hanks et Ayelet Zurer, ainsi que celle du réalisateur Ron Howard, venus présenter en exclusivité des morceaux choisis de leur nouveau film, adaptation cinématographique du best-seller « Anges et Démons » de Dan Brown. La sortie internationale du film de Sony Pictures est prévue le 15 mai 2009.

Lorsque Sony Pictures a manifesté, début 2007, le souhait de tourner une partie du film au CERN, le Laboratoire a rapidement compris l’opportunité d’un tel projet et accepté de prendre part à l’aventure.

« Le fait qu’Anges et Démons soit un roman à succès et, désormais, une superproduction hollywoodienne, est l’occasion pour nous de montrer que la recherche sur l’antimatière est passionnante, explique Sergio Bertolucci, directeur de la recherche du CERN. La fiction comme la science nous font passer de l’ordinaire à l’extraordinaire, la différence étant que la science doit rester ancrée dans la réalité. »

« Travailler avec le CERN a été un privilège, a indiqué Ron Howard. Les scientifiques nous ont énormément aidés en nous expliquant la science et en nous permettant d’accéder à des lieux hors du commun. Ce qu’ils font ici est tout simplement fantastique. »

Avec ses recherches sur l’antimatière, le CERN cherche avant tout à comprendre pourquoi la Nature préfère la matière à l’antimatière. Lors du big bang, qui a marqué la naissance de notre Univers il y a environ 13,7 milliards d'années, la matière et l’antimatière auraient été créées en quantité égale. Comme Dan Brown l’explique justement dans son roman, lorsque la matière et l’antimatière se rencontrent, elles s’annihilent et se transforment en énergie. C’est donc l’un des grands mystères de l’Univers : comment suffisamment de matière a réussi à subsister pour former les constituants fondamentaux des étoiles, des planètes et même de l’homme.

L’antimatière trouve également des applications pratiques. La tomographie par émission de positons est une technique d'imagerie médicale qui utilise l’antimatière pour aider les médecins à visualiser le fonctionnement du corps humain. Quant aux scanners, ils doivent beaucoup aux techniques mises au point pour la recherche en physique des particules. Un jour, l’antimatière pourrait aussi être utilisée dans le traitement du cancer. Les premières expériences menées au CERN ont en effet montré que les faisceaux de particules d’antimatière pourraient s’avérer très efficaces pour détruire les cellules cancéreuses.

Source : CERN

Keira Knightley is signed to 'Never Let Me Go'

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:33:55 -0000

Source: Variety

Keira Knightley is set to star in the Fox Searchlight Pictures adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.

Kazuo Ishiguro

Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich are producing through their London-based DNA Films. Alex Garland, who wrote the screenplay, is producing as well. Film 4 is also involved as a producer. Mark Romanek will direct the cloning-themed film, which will also star Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan.

The story revolves around a trio who grew up in a boarding school with no contact or knowledge of the outside world before they discover their designed purpose in life.

DNA Films, which has a longstanding partnership with Searchlight, has previously teamed with the specialty label on a number of films including "The Last King of Scotland" and Danny Boyle’s "Sunshine" and "28 Days Later."

'Never' is set to shoot in April in London and Norfolk, England.

Knightley is attached to star in several films, including "The Beautiful and the Damned" and the Columbia Pictures remake of "My Fair Lady."

Source: Variety

bigdealbooks.com

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 06:53:07 -0000

bigdealbooks.com

website in revision / development...

Add Chronicle to Endangered Species List

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 03:33:43 -0000

Hearst seeks changes at the San Francisco Chronicle
source : nytimes (DealBook; Andrew Ross Sorkin, ed.)

Hearst said on Tuesday that it may sell or close The San Francisco Chronicle if it cannot wring enough savings from the money-losing newspaper.

The announcement is the latest in a string of bad news for the newspaper industry, as several large papers and their publishers contemplate filing for bankruptcy amid plummeting advertising and circulation numbers.

Hearst said in its statement that The Chronicle, which it bought in 2000, lost $50 million last year and has lost money every year since 2001. Among the changes the company said it wants to see is “a significant reduction” in its union and nonunion employees.

“Survival is the outcome we all want to achieve,” Frank A. Bennack Jr., Hearst’s chief executive officer, and Steven R. Swartz, the president of its newspaper division, said in a statement. “But without the specific changes we are seeking across the entire Chronicle organization, we will have no choice but to quickly seek a buyer for the Chronicle or, should a buyer not be found, to shut the newspaper down.”

Frank J. Vega, The Chronicle’s chairman and publisher, told the newspaper: “It’s just a fact of life that we need to live within our means as a newspaper - and we have not for years.”

Times are tough for newspapers in general, as revenue continues to fall in the wake of the recession. Media experts have said that the San Francisco market in particular is a rough one for newspaper: as The Chronicle points out, 21 newspapers serve 11 counties in the area.

The Chronicle's circulation has fallen precipitously since the dot-com go-go days (around 1997 to 2001). The Chronicle's circulation dropped by 16.6% between 2004 and 2005 to 400,906 and in 2006, daily circulation dropped further to 373,805.

Hearst also warned last month that it may sell or shut down another of its papers, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, if no buyer can be found. The SF Chronicle joins the LA Times (Tribune Co.) on the uncertain road ahead.

The Chronicle's coverage of it's own story

Related:
The Future of the Star Tribune
The Future of the Tribune Co.

Oscar forged in Chicago

Big Deal Book Store bigdealbooks.com — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:00:54 -0000

Oscar 3453 is 'born' in a humble factory on the Northwest Side

source : AP
By DON BABWIN

One of the biggest stars of this year's Academy Awards was born on Chicago's northwest side, brought into the world by Martin Vega and prepped for his big close-up by Eladio Gonzalez.

Technically, his name is 3453, but he also goes by Oscar.

Tonight he'll be glistening onstage at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, clutched perhaps by a tearful Kate Winslet or an even tearier Mickey Rourke. They will grab him around his waist, hoist him into the air and thank everyone who helped mold their success - everyone, that is, except Vega and Gonzalez.

Like most Hollywood sagas, the story of Oscar 3453 begins with casting - in this case, the transformation of a chunk of metal alloy into a 13 1/2-inch-tall man whose behind, as the story goes, was once described by Bette Davis as resembling her first husband's.

We're on location at the R.S. Owens factory, a nondescript building on North Lynch Avenue, where the statuettes have been made since 1983. It's Jan. 22, and coincidentally enough, this year's Academy Award nominations were just announced in Beverly Hills. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" received a leading 13 nods, so who knows, maybe Oscar 3453 will end up with Brad Pitt or makeup artist Greg Cannom.

But right now, Vega, 40, focuses on his own artistry, as he melts bars made of britannia, a high-grade pewter alloy, in a casting tank. He then dips a ladle in the 780-degree liquid and slowly pours the molten liquid into a steel mold, one of just two ever made, the other now retired. The remaining mold is usually locked up in a safe, brought out only this time of year for the two or so days it takes to cast the 50 Oscars that will be shipped to Hollywood.

Vega tilts the mold slightly as he pours, so he fills the entire mold evenly.

That takes only 13 seconds, and it's just over a minute more before he unclamps the top of the mold, hammers it a bit until the top pops off, revealing to the proud Vega the backside of an 8 1/2-pound Oscar.

"Not bad for an 81-year-old man," says Owens sales manager and our escort for the day, Noreen Prohaska.

Vega takes out the still-hot statuette and lays it down next to seven others, which are all face up on a nearby table.

They cool for maybe an hour before some of the excess around the edges is cut off along with what resembles a piece of hose (think umbilical cord) protruding from the bottom where the molten alloy was poured into the mold.

From there it is taken to Gonzalez, 40, at the buffer machine. He smooths it with a sanding wheel about the size of a wheel on a kid's wagon, taking off what is called flash, a raised edge that runs along Oscar where the pieces of the mold fit together. He then replaces that wheel with a slightly larger buffing wheel.

Forty-five minutes later, Oscar shines.

Every statuette is assigned a serial number, which is engraved in its base, to ensure that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can track each one, hence our subject's very special birth name, 3453.

Engraver Louise White, 56, secures the Oscar, face down, the top of its head against a piece of rubber "so we don't give him a headache," she says. The numbers 3-4-5-3 are lined up in a row on her engraving machine and White, a 36-year Owens veteran, uses what looks like a primitive dental drill to trace them.

That is connected to an industrial diamond stylus, which is pointed at the base of the Oscar and mimics the exact movements of the tracing instrument, only half as big. So, when she traces a '3' with one hand, the stylus is moving in the same way.

Now Oscar 3453 must be cured, which is factory-speak for waiting long enough to make sure there are no air holes or cracks that might weaken it. A few days later it was bath time, as Nunzio Giganti fitted Oscar on a wire rack before dipping him into soapy water to clean him up a bit. Then it was a dip in liquid copper, nickel and then ever so quickly, silver.

Giganti blow dries him, using an air hose that looks and sounds like one used for tires at a gas station. Finally, comes every trophy's dream - a dip in 24-karat gold in a tub used for Oscar and only Oscar.

Giganti then walks it over to the assembly area, where Bertha Fuentes screws on the brass-encased base, puts a plastic bag over Oscar's head and puts it into a form-fitted foam box, which is then put into a cardboard box for shipping.

Tonight, Mr. 3453 will join his freshly-minted brothers on the journey taken by many a star-struck Midwesterner - the flight to Hollywood.

To be continued.

source : AP

The 81st Academy Award Nominations (categories and winners in bold)

Performance by an actor in a leading role
• Richard Jenkins in “The Visitor” (Overture Films)
• Frank Langella in “Frost/Nixon” (Universal)
• Sean Penn in “Milk” (Focus Features)
• Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
• Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler” (Fox Searchlight)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
• Josh Brolin in “Milk” (Focus Features)
• Robert Downey Jr. in “Tropic Thunder” (DreamWorks, Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount)
• Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Doubt” (Miramax)
• Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.)
• Michael Shannon in “Revolutionary Road” (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage)

Performance by an actress in a leading role
• Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married” (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Angelina Jolie in “Changeling” (Universal)
• Melissa Leo in “Frozen River” (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Meryl Streep in “Doubt” (Miramax)
• Kate Winslet in “The Reader” (The Weinstein Company)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
• Amy Adams in “Doubt” (Miramax)
• Penélope Cruz in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (The Weinstein Company)
• Viola Davis in “Doubt” (Miramax)
• Taraji P. Henson in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
• Marisa Tomei in “The Wrestler” (Fox Searchlight)

Best animated feature film of the year
• “Bolt” (Walt Disney), Chris Williams and Byron Howard
• “Kung Fu Panda” (DreamWorks Animation, Distributed by Paramount), John Stevenson and Mark Osborne
• “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Andrew Stanton

Achievement in art direction
• “Changeling” (Universal), Art Direction: James J. Murakami, Set Decoration: Gary Fettis
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Art Direction: Donald Graham Burt, Set Decoration: Victor J. Zolfo
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Art Direction: Nathan Crowley, Set Decoration: Peter Lando
• “The Duchess” (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films), Art Direction: Michael Carlin, Set Decoration: Rebecca Alleway
• “Revolutionary Road” (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage), Art Direction: Kristi Zea, Set Decoration: Debra Schutt

Achievement in cinematography
• “Changeling” (Universal), Tom Stern
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Claudio Miranda
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Wally Pfister
• “The Reader” (The Weinstein Company), Chris Menges and Roger Deakins
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Anthony Dod Mantle

Achievement in costume design
• “Australia” (20th Century Fox), Catherine Martin
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Jacqueline West
• “The Duchess” (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films), Michael O’Connor
• “Milk” (Focus Features), Danny Glicker
• “Revolutionary Road” (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage), Albert Wolsky

Achievement in directing
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), David Fincher
• “Frost/Nixon” (Universal), Ron Howard
• “Milk” (Focus Features), Gus Van Sant
• “The Reader” (The Weinstein Company), Stephen Daldry
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Danny Boyle

Best documentary feature
• “The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)” (Cinema Guild), A Pandinlao Films Production, Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath
• “Encounters at the End of the World” (THINKFilm and Image Entertainment), A Creative Differences Production, Werner Herzog and Henry Kaiser
• “The Garden” A Black Valley Films Production, Scott Hamilton Kennedy
• “Man on Wire” (Magnolia Pictures), A Wall to Wall Production, James Marsh and Simon Chinn
• “Trouble the Water” (Zeitgeist Films), An Elsewhere Films Production, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal

Best documentary short subject
• “The Conscience of Nhem En” A Farallon Films Production, Steven Okazaki
• “The Final Inch” A Vermilion Films Production, Irene Taylor Brodsky and Tom Grant
• “Smile Pinki” A Principe Production, Megan Mylan
• “The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306” A Rock Paper Scissors Production, Adam Pertofsky and Margaret Hyde

Achievement in film editing
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Lee Smith
• “Frost/Nixon” (Universal), Mike Hill and Dan Hanley
• “Milk” (Focus Features), Elliot Graham
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Chris Dickens

Best foreign language film of the year
• “The Baader Meinhof Complex” A Constantin Film Production, Germany
• “The Class” (Sony Pictures Classics), A Haut et Court Production, France
• “Departures” (Regent Releasing), A Departures Film Partners Production, Japan
• “Revanche” (Janus Films), A Prisma Film/Fernseh Production, Austria
• “Waltz with Bashir” (Sony Pictures Classics), A Bridgit Folman Film Gang Production, Israel

Achievement in makeup
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Greg Cannom
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O’Sullivan
• “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” (Universal), Mike Elizalde and Thom Floutz

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Alexandre Desplat
• “Defiance” (Paramount Vantage), James Newton Howard
• “Milk” (Focus Features), Danny Elfman
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), A.R. Rahman
• “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Thomas Newman

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
• “Down to Earth” from “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, Lyric by Peter Gabriel
• “Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyric by Gulzar
• “O Saya” from “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Music and Lyric by A.R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam

Best motion picture of the year
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), A Kennedy/Marshall Production, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and
Ceán Chaffin, Producers
• “Frost/Nixon” (Universal), A Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment and Working Title Production, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Eric Fellner,
Producers
• “Milk” (Focus Features), A Groundswell and Jinks/Cohen Company Production, Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, Producers
• “The Reader” (The Weinstein Company), A Mirage Enterprises and Neunte Babelsberg Film GmbH Production, Nominees to be determined
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), A Celador Films Production, Christian Colson, Producer

Best animated short film
•“La Maison en Petits Cubes” A Robot Communications Production, Kunio Kato
• “Lavatory - Lovestory” A Melnitsa Animation Studio and CTB Film Company Production, Konstantin Bronzit
• “Oktapodi” (Talantis Films), A Gobelins, L’école de l’image Production, Emud Mokhberi and Thierry Marchand
• “Presto” (Walt Disney), A Pixar Animation Studios Production, Doug Sweetland
• “This Way Up” A Nexus Production, Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes

Best live action short film
• “Auf der Strecke (On the Line)” (Hamburg Shortfilmagency), An Academy of Media Arts Cologne Production, Reto Caffi
• “Manon on the Asphalt” (La Luna Productions), A La Luna Production, Elizabeth Marre and Olivier Pont
• “New Boy” (Network Ireland Television), A Zanzibar Films Production, Steph Green and Tamara Anghie
• “The Pig” An M & M Production, Tivi Magnusson and Dorte Høgh
• “Spielzeugland (Toyland)” A Mephisto Film Production, Jochen Alexander Freydank

Achievement in sound editing
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Richard King
• “Iron Man” (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment), Frank Eulner and Christopher Boyes
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Tom Sayers
• “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
• “Wanted” (Universal), Wylie Stateman

Achievement in sound mixing
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Mark Weingarten
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty
• “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Tom Myers, Michael Semanick and Ben Burtt
• “Wanted” (Universal), Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño and Petr Forejt

Achievement in visual effects
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber and Paul Franklin
• “Iron Man” (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment), John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick and Shane Mahan

Adapted screenplay
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Screenplay by Eric Roth, Screen story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
• “Doubt” (Miramax), Written by John Patrick Shanley
• “Frost/Nixon” (Universal), Screenplay by Peter Morgan
• “The Reader” (The Weinstein Company), Screenplay by David Hare
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

Original screenplay
• “Frozen River” (Sony Pictures Classics), Written by Courtney Hunt
• “Happy-Go-Lucky” (Miramax), Written by Mike Leigh
• “In Bruges” (Focus Features), Written by Martin McDonagh
• “Milk” (Focus Features), Written by Dustin Lance Black
• “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter